


A Special Place

by Emblue_Sparks



Series: A Dark Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alistair flashbacks, Anal Sex, Attempted self harm, Blood Kink, Blood Play, Blow Jobs, Bodily Fluids, Bottom Dean, Cas POV, Creative use of non torture devices, Dark fic, Dean POV, Duct Tape, Emotional torment, Except Jack, Extreme violation of consent(concerning vessels, Forced Voyeurism, Frottage, Genital Mutilation, Gore, Grace - Freeform, Implied Underage, Iron Spider - Freeform, Judas Cradle, Kissing, M/M, Moral corruption, Multiple Orgasms, Needham Asylum, No MCD, Nonsexual coercion and force, Pining, Prince of Hell!Cas, Questions/Spoiler requests always welcome, Rough Sex, Sad Ending, Sam POV, Sam wants to bleach his eyes, Season 15 divergent, Spevak's Mechanism, Stull Cemetery, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Cas, Torture Specialist!Dean, Torture of pedophiles, Use of antiquated torture devices, Violence, Vomiting, accusations of homophobia, and soul), arachnid torture, biting kink, bodily injuries from rough sex, cuddles and torment, cum kink, curse, defecating, dubious masochism, emotional prisons, everybody naked, fecal torture, figging with a Carolina Reaper, hexes and firewhiskey, implied crimes of pedophilia, implied underage suicide, justified torture of pedophiles, misuse of a good demon, modified sounding device, painful restraints/bonds, polymarriage, rectal mutilation, rope, rusty melon baller, sequel titled "Redemption's Soul" now posted, the bunker, torture to tunes, urinating, various knives, violence between brothers, vomit torture, weaponized vegetable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:37:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emblue_Sparks/pseuds/Emblue_Sparks
Summary: 2020-When Cas and Dean narrowly escape from the Empty, it's abundantly clear their freedom is marred with tragedy. The angel reveals he's been cursed by the vengeful Shadow, and is now becoming a Prince of Hell. Urging Dean to spend time with Cas on his terf at Needham Asylum, Sam hopes the change in setting will allow his brother to gather useful intel leading to a solution. Dean must reprise his infamous role as Alistair's star pupil if he is to gain Cas's trust and continue searching for a means of saving him.Making an unannounced trip to the asylum, Sam confirms that Dean's method acting is no longer a reluctant performance, but a full blown descent into darkness. He recruits Jack and Rowena for a critical "all hands on deck" situation. When the plan backfires spectacularly, they're forced into making a series of swift, unfathomable choices to avoid losing Dean and Cas forever. The dark ingenuity will require extreme violations of free will and the consequences of the cure might be worse than the curse itself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! This is my first dark fic and first bang, may you find it suitably horrifying! Many thanks to the Mods in the Supernatural Dark Fic Bang for making the experience a pleasant one. BIG TIME KUDOS to my Alpha: amyoatmeal, Beta: tfw_cas, Omega: Jak_the_ATAT, and my Artist: 3195!
> 
> You may find a note or two throughout the fic providing warning and/or clarification. If you'd like me to expand on a tag or give spoilers, I'm happy to do so! You can find me over on tumblr: @emblue-sparks
> 
> I'd love to know what you think about this story, and/or should you be so inclined to impart any constructive advice, please comment away! (Serial commenters are my tribe). Happy Reading!

March 2020

"You gonna put some clothes on?"

Sam stood in the Dean Cave at 7:46 am, coffee in hand, processing the scene in front of him. Despite all efforts, he couldn't conjure a rational explanation for Dean's naked ass lounging in one of the recliners, trancing out at the blank TV screen.

Normally, the situation dictated he give him some shit like,"You bang some patchouli last night? Snap out of it."

But an unconventional update in Dean's relationship status had Sam knowing far better.

"You bringing Naked Thursdays back? C'mon, we have a kid roamin' the halls."

It would've been comical, if not for Dean's continually increasing response times since he'd begun slipping into these bizarro space outs that started some weeks earlier.

Sam sighed, "I'm getting you some underwear."

Traipsing down to his brother's room, he mulled over Dean's appearance, noting he'd slimmed down. Odd, since the guys appetite could be classified as 'Tapeworm positive' despite the currently high stress circumstances which usually rendered them both peckish at best.

Returning, he found Dean peeking into the hall, as if someone had called his name. "You say something?" Dean wondered. The dark circles framing his eyes were more pronounced, probably from another all nighter, searching for clues on how to fix his boyfriend.

Sam dangled the boxer briefs in front of him. "Yeah. Underwear. Now."

Dean regarded both command and briefs with disdain.

"Guessing you didn't exactly hit pay dirt." Having finished his coffee, Sam prepared to spend another day in the archive room combing for answers. But for Cas, it was the least he could do.

Rubbing his eyes, Dean replied, "You'd be the first to know if I had. Gonna grab my four hours. Words keep jumpin' off the page, I don't even know how the hell I ended up in another room this time."

"I'm not playing alarm clock, so don't even ask. If you manage to snooze through Whitney Houston belting the national anthem again then you need the rest."

Giving a perfunctory nod, Dean schlepped towards his room.

In the last month and a half, Sam had lost count of how often he'd watched Dean's withering form meandering in the bunker, discouraged and disheartened, in utter exhaustion. His own grave doubts as to how much longer Cas could keep his darker inclinations at bay were wearing him down. But for Dean, who not-so-secretly pined for his angel, he put on a brave face.

"We'll figure something out Dean. I know we will."

Sam was unable to calm the storming concern brewing in the pit of his stomach over his brother's mental health. Jesus, Dean was in bad shape. Understandable. Considering, for every second whizzing by without answers the lesser their chances of pulling Cas back from the precipice of Hell were before he was lost to them forever.

Based on looks alone, he'd say Dean's already weathered and battle torn soul was nearly done, and his heart, a few fissures away from shattering.

Dean's whispering voice broke from plaguing distress. "I need him back Sam. We gotta get ‘em back."

"We will."

Sam entered the archive room, summoning the strength to commence another minimum fifteen hour day, slogging through countless books for the tiniest clue or sliver of hope. Gray blotches began dancing across his field of vision under the repetitive strain to retrieve additional memory fragments, no matter how seemingly irrelevant. He found himself requiring an atypical amount of discipline to banish his mounting fears about failing to cure Cas, and how that would affect Dean.

Cracking open a musty monograph, Sam began his painstaking method of "no page left unturned," and simultaneously recalled the night Dean and Cas escaped from the Empty.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

January 2020

“Jack! Donatello! Hurry up!" Sam shouted, dashing to the portal location in Stull Cemetery, where Dean and Cas would come through from the Empty. An unnerving amount of lightning spider webbed across the cloudy night sky, scorching the desolate landscape.

Once there, Donatello lay still on a blanket while Sam uttered the Enochian incantations, channeling Cas. A portal suddenly ripped open roughly fifteen feet away to their left. Slimy tendrils of black tar slithered through the opening just as a skeletal face possessing bright yellow eyes pushed through. It scanned the tempestuous environment in desperate examination.

All three recoiled from the figures' unexpected appearance. They could see its tremendous struggle with something unseen further back in the dark realm’s passageway. The entity managed to reach through, extending its bony, metallic hand to Sam.

But it was Jack, their Little Engine that Could, who took the proverbial bull by the horns. He grabbed on and shouted, "Cas says the Shadow is trying to drag Dean back! He can't hold on much longer!"

As Sam gripped the arm above the hand Jack was holding, Cas bellowed at something invisible from behind him, then lunged through the portal, hauling an unconscious Dean.

Mere moments after their escape from the Empty, it became evident something was wrong with Cas. He made no effort to heal a nasty looking gash in his chest. His eyes contained a faint golden luminescence and were continually shifting, as if seeing planet Earth for the first time. Most telling, however, was the disturbing calm with which he relayed his condition.

"The Shadow is possessive and unforgiving. He grabbed Dean knowing I'd never leave without him. When I turned to get a better grip, he cursed me."

While assessing Dean for obvious injury, Sam froze, but continued to listen intently.

Jack worriedly asked, "Cursed you how?"

"I'm turning into a Prince."

Sam couldn't discern if Cas's tone was of quiet shock or reverence. It was deeply unsettling, regardless.

With the innocent glee only a child can exude, Jack lit up in unchecked delight.

"A prince? Like in fairy tales?"

Suspicion now clawed at Sam's insides. "There's only one kind of Prince you could become that's dark enough to satisfy the Shadow's vengeance. It sure as Hell isn't one of the fairy tale variety."

Cas only shrugged his shoulders and unleashed an ominous smirk. Lightning struck. Thunder crashed. And two glowing embers rekindled in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Late March 2020

7:30AM found Dean hobbling into the kitchen, foraging for coffee and a metric fuck ton of tylenol.

"Your room make it through this time?" Sam wondered aloud.

Any other time, Dean would light heartedly dismiss a wild sexual escapade induced raz, but not now. He shot him an eye roll.

Several weeks had passed since that morning after Stull Cemetery. Admittedly, early on when Cas could get away from the asylum to be with Dean, there'd been a bit of a learning curve when it came to Cas and control. Still was. But like hell was he gonna complain.

"Cas here?” Sam craned his neck in expectation, looking over Dean's shoulder.

“Nope.”

“We've worried over him for weeks, Dean. I'm not sure he's capable of holding onto himself, like he did in the beginning.”

“I'm not giving up on him. You didn't give up on me when I had the mark or went south with Crowley. He needs us fighting that hard for him.

“Of course. So what if we change tactics? Maybe getting a look at what Cas is doing in Crowley's old lair might give us something else to go on. Any idea how much longer we have to fix things, before the Cas we know is-”

“Don't even say it.” Dean had to fake cough to conceal the emotion in his voice. "But I’m not friggin’ spying on him.”

“I don't like the idea anymore than you; feels wrong even bringing it up, but every time we see him he's worse and you know it."

Dean wouldn't admit it, but everytime he saw Cas, he felt worse too. And definitely different.

Sam seemed wistful. "I know how hard this is on you, and I'm sorry, but we're running out of time and options. Rowena's pulling a world tour, combing the four corners for clues. But in the meantime-"

"He finds out I'm playing Huggie Bear, we can kiss our chances and his trust goodbye."

“Can you tail him?”

“No, Sam! I'm not gonna tail him! That's worse than your celestial James Bond idea, at least with that strategy we'd actually be together." Dean was nearing his wits end. "We haven't found a damn thing in any book or artifact. I don't wanna waste time researching if there's no getting him back. But I can't ride out what little's left, feeling sick over betraying his trust either. No."

He could tell Sam was treading carefully. “As complicated as things are right now, he loves you. And you love him, right?”

If Dean looked his brother in the eye, he knew the dam would burst. So he stuck to boring holes in the kitchen floor with his eyes. “Yeah, Sam. I love him.”

“Then go to him. Be together, there. You're miserable either way. At least in the asylum you've got a snowball's chance of learning something new and useful."

Dean's silence and stern expression conveyed his extreme reluctance.

"Watch him. Learn what you can, let me know about any rapid changes in his behavior. If he says something weird. Does something even weirder."

“Doesn't feel right.”

“None of it does. I want him home too, Dean. All of him. You both deserve to be happy.”

As close as Dean was to a mental meltdown, Sam's words struck a chord and redirected his focus to the task at hand. Find Cas. Fix him. Bring him home.

But first, breakfast.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

The distance between the bunker and Needham in Fall River, Massachusetts was equal to one long ass drive. He passed time cruising drive thrus, getting while the gettin' was good, and well before its expiration date.

Inevitably, while worrying a bone over what condition he'd find Cas in, his mind drifted to the night of their fateful exodus. Some memories were fuzzy, but the sharpest ones were from when he woke up, desperate to know if Cas had made it through the portal.

January 2020

"Where's Cas? Where is he, Sam?"

It was dark and raining, Sam had survived, but where was Cas? He had a bad suspicion something had gone really wrong in that place. A flash of lightning ripped through the night sky, calling his soul; he knew it was meant for him.

Dean turned to find Castiel; his angel's searing eyes lit up like the crooked webs he’d just thrown into the atmosphere. The shadows of his massive black wings fully extended behind him, giving Dean chills at the sight of their beauty. Castiel's raw, radiating power him hit like a shockwave, leaving him breathless and spellbound.

Hearing Sam, Jack, and Donatello gasping behind him, he could understand their reaction. Cas was terrifying to look at, with eyes like pulsating embers not unlike the nephil’s when properly riled. His shirt was torn, revealing a gash in his chest, and a distinctly demonic growl reverberated within his personal space. Dean stood before this darkened Prince, grounding him with a reverent touch.

“I don't care about..this.” Tears spilled down his cheeks as he gestured to what Cas was becoming. "Nobody's going anywhere, or giving up. Least of all me."

Cas leaned into Dean's hand, closed his eyes, and treasured its warmth against his chilled skin. His eyes flashed open, revealing a burnt orange hue, eerily reminiscent of Hellfire. All at once Dean felt the building need of the past decade igniting between them. The angel grabbed the front of his henley and pulled him in. His kiss was deep and commanding, and the second their lips touched, a current sparked between them.

He heard Cas rumbling with pleasure as his tongue sinfully tempted and took what it desired. Dean’s hands flew straight to the angel’s hair, messing it up like he'd fantasized countless times. He felt himself pushed back against a solid oak, and welcomed Cas slamming against him with breathtaking intent.

Dean experienced unadulterated bliss as Cas's solid form pressed against him in ways his mouth would if it weren't already busy making his head spin.

"Dean! Hey, Dean!?"

‘BUSY, SAM!’ he thought he voiced, but couldn't be sure. His mouth was otherwise distracted, tasting the lightning in a bottle riling his soul.

Seconds later, they were back in his bedroom, Cas tore their clothing to shreds, endeavoring to put his naked self against Dean. And Holy Hell, Cas was stunning to look at. Underneath the bureaucratic attire was the expertly sculpted form of an Olympian athlete.

With the simple flick of a wrist, several items were flung across the room. He felt himself lifted and set sideways onto the newly reorganized desk.

Cas bit and kissed stinging trails down his chest and torso with a mouth like fire. Burning, red scratches appeared down his sides, which only enhanced Dean's anticipation of where Cas’s mouth was headed. He jolted, feeling the angel heatedly swallow him with a possessive growl. The torturous assault had him gasping, and his hands blissfully took hold of the angel’s dark mane. Controlling the sounds falling from his lips became impossible as Cas's hand and mouth fell in perfect sync.

Everything was a hormonal blur beyond that point. He had a vague sense of being flung onto the bed. A deliciously firm body undulated against his own, pressing his arms almost painfully into the memory foam above his head.

This was his heaven.

Cas kissed him like the world was burning itself out. Exhilaration pulsed throughout his body. He could finally feel the proof of how badly his angel ached for him. How primal Cas's movements were, sliding their impressively hard erections together.

In between kisses, his name fell from his angel's lips with reverence. So hypnotic, so seductive was Cas's tone, Dean shuddered, almost losing consciousness from euphoria alone. When the angel spoke, his entire body responded.

Finally he understood, the claim on his arm made so long ago was for his soul. The unwavering loyalty over the years was for his mind. Now Dean's name on his dark angel’s lips was a binding vow to his body, which it instinctively accepted of its own accord.

Their passion became all consuming. Their love was heaven and hell wrapped in dream-like ecstasy. All tension, fear, and craving each had held for the other ebbed and flowed between them, as constant and sure as the moon's tethered rotation around the earth.

Rolling around the room at impossible angles, they were everywhere and nowhere, time seemed removed. All Dean knew was Cas filling his soul, his heart, and his body. He'd be suffering immeasurable pain tomorrow from the gravity defying, otherworldly lovemaking he never dreamed could be so good.

Throughout the night he was aware the room was being torn apart. He could hear it all around them. His body was faring no differently. The rough brick tore into his back as they chased another release immediately, following a spectacular one on the ceiling somehow. Looking at his chest, his skin was brilliantly raw and bleeding from the cement ledge Cas was pounding him into. His neck felt deliciously ravaged by dozens of bites. Both knees would be black with bruises from his desk chair. And yet, he gave not one damn.

At some point his brain clocked out. He’d have given anything not to need sleep, but he was safe in the arms of the angel he loved to the moon and back. For now. The fact that Cas was cursed and irrevocably chained to a realm with no leader, made Dean love him no less. If anything, he'd never wanted to beat the clock so bad in all his life.


	3. Chapter 3

Late March 2020

Pulling up outside the asylum in Fall River, MA, he found the eerie silence in the abandoned neighborhood disturbing. Slinging both bag and courage over his shoulder, the asylum’s front door opened, revealing the interior’s depressing darkness.

Dean spotted two demons a few feet away, stark naked, and attempting murder through gaze alone. When led through the throne room corridor, he heard himself announced and beheld his angel sitting on Hell’s throne. Apparently the only things Cas saw fit to wear for his reception were a wink and a smile. Naked Cas was a beautiful thing, but the choice made him extremely uneasy; was his angel still in there?

Regardless, it was showtime.

He plastered on his most charming facade, despite the certainty he was dying inside. “Lookin' real good Cas.”

The angel actually blushed. "Thank you. Welcome, Dean.”

"I'm feeling a little overdressed here."

Cas chuckled while explaining, "It's proven effective, in keeping those contemplating disobedience, far more aware of what they stand to lose." He laced their fingers together, placing soft kisses on the back of Dean's hand.

"Smart. And you..just like the dress code?"

"The breeze is comfortable and refreshing. Let me give you the tour."

Things had indeed changed since Crowley's reign. For one, the place was immaculate. The standards of cleanliness were evidently held at levels to which not even Dean himself could aspire. Another, the Minions of Discontent maintained a fierce respect for their new Prince. No doubt it was born of fear, but who really cared as long as they complied?

After the tour, heavy fatigue set in and he was glad Cas took him to their room. He'd done a damn fine job of furnishing the space, which included a massive bed. The blue mini fridge filled with beer kinda tugged at his heart strings.

After downing a few to depict himself as convincingly relaxed, a pair of arms slithered around his waist from behind.

“I've missed you, Dean.”

The vibrating whisper behind his ear sent chills rolling throughout every nerve receptor. Lust and need ripped through his core. But stronger still was his need to assess Cas, and verify that at least for a little while longer, they were still them.

"You alright? I need to know we're still okay." He'd always been a sucker for the quiet, affectionate moments.

Soft kisses peppered the back of his neck. "If you're with me, we're still okay."

His angel had him on the bed, and his clothes were removed in no time. They stayed in the room for the remainder of the day and night making love.

Over the next several days, Dean learned Cas's day to day obligations were filled with boring as fuck administrative proceedings. He pretended to be interested, listening until either a nap seized him or he saw a window of opportunity to snoop. The nights were filled with more palatable activities of the sexual variety. But more than once, he'd awakened to an empty bed, wondering what had drawn Cas away.

One night he heard screaming as the fuzziness of sleep shrunk away and he panicked, thinking it was one of the bad dreams. Upon realizing where he was, he shot up in full blown PTSD mode, grasping his chest, choking for air.

The room filled with the rushing sound of wings and Cas was there beside him.

“What's wrong?” Cas was already holding him close, lowering his heart rate.

“I’ll be fine. Who's screaming?”

The faint light from the room’s candles danced like hellfire across his unreadable face. “My apologies. You weren't meant to hear that.”

“Are they alri-" He caught himself asking the most dumbass question possible. Of course they weren't alright.

A flash of a smile from Cas twisted his stomach, along with the following query.

“May I show you a special project I'm working on?” he asked, kissing Dean's cheek and nuzzling his nose.

Hell. No. And yet, refusal would be forfeiting much needed intel. To hide the tremors in his hands, he tucked them behind his back and followed Cas down the cold, dim hallway.

Cas brushed his fingers down Dean's cheek before leaning over to kiss him. “I'm renovating the same wing of cells which once held me, for souls guilty of a particular crime. When finished, they'll be transported here shortly after arriving at the rusty gates. This is my special project.”

Goosebumps appeared in a violent rash, speckling his naked flesh at the jaw dropping scene which greeted them in the throne room.

Looking upon the soul of some gurgling forty-something guy strung up haphazardly, gutted like a pig, Dean found small consolation in knowing the torture was justified.

The immediate, panic-fueled explanation he expected from Cas, was startlingly absent. In its place, a stunning assumption of Dean's irrefutable acceptance, accompanied by a brief statement to the obvious.

"Mistakes in Hell are anomalies, occurring maybe .001% of the time. You were that infamous percent."

"Should I be offended I'm just a statistic? Or appreciative that measure of accuracy ensures nobody else knows the literal Hell I've gone through as a result of that one, big fuck up?"

Warmth danced in Cas's eyes. "I prefer to view the glass half full. My presence here guarantees zero margin for error."

Dean would swear on a Bible he felt a little piece of his soul sizzle, burn, and float away when feeding Cas his worst bullshit to date.

"Well, if that's not turning a frown upside down..we get you outta here, then I can see a stellar sales career in your future."

He couldn't even look Cas in the eye, not even to assess his response. But before he could divert the conversation away from lies and subterfuge, a few of his senses began registering a bigger problem.

The familiar sting in his nose, the turn of his stomach from the stench of fresh fecal matter pouring down the man's back and neck, threatened to betray his performance. Bile pooled in the back of his throat while watching the river of black and crimson flow down his front, funneling into the drain below. The man's chest and bowels had been opened, his sternum bowed forward, having cracked from incessant tugging.

Only now, in the more adequately lit room did Dean finally notice the patterned blood splatter against Cas's hip. His right hand boasted a bright red stain, indicating he'd wiped off the excess in a rush.

Dean choked out, “What've you done?” Fuck. It'd spilled out more shocked than intended.

He hadn't banked on Cas being this far gone. Instinct was screaming and clawing for him to grab his angel and bolt. If he faltered now, he'd ruin all chances of fixing him. But deep down, way down, his subconscious was silently acknowledging a microzoic compulsion to hang around, see how things played out.

Already, Cas's eyes were glaring at him in speculation, which triggered him into kicking his performance up a notch. Hoping to keep down a PB & J from earlier, he conjured the best game face he could muster.

“That's some sloppy work, Cas. C'mon man, Anatomy 101. You're better than this."

Watching the man's soul instantly heal recalibrated Dean, and brought his task into focus. His mind turned over the ignition. His body followed suit. With a half-crazed smirk, his muscle memory fired off, inducing a few scattered twitches. Like the high engine revolutions of a beautiful classic, they cleared the excess fuel in his lines.

Now that he'd dusted himself off, so to speak, he closed his eyes and stilled. Shutting out every protest from both body and mind would be critical in finding the dark vein from which to tap.

Then it happened.

The pads of his fingers were slipping through the blood splatter he'd spotted earlier on their way to grasp a handful of his angel's perfect ass.

"Cas. Believe me, your knowledge of the human anatomy is aces. You know the layers of fat and the muscles underneath as well as I do, it's yer execution that could use improvement."

An inquisitive angel tilted his head. "I'm an eager student, in need of a willing teacher."

He felt Cas's delectable shivers when ghosting his fingertips down the curve of his spine. The moan he drew out of his angel when scraping an incisor down the softest stretch of his neck, was an otherworldly tune in his ears. He faintly palmed the sensitive weights swelling between Cas's impressively muscled inner thighs.

Kisses from a light wind feathering his whole body filled the millisecond of space and time it took to find himself on Cas's lap, which was comfortably situated on his throne. Impossibly strong arms enveloped and caressed him, while shimmering, golden eyes stared into his soul. Cas sure knew how to sweep a guy off his feet. And damn, if that wasn't motivation to break a leg maintaining a quality performance.

"Mmmm, angel, you're in need of some expert guidance which I am qualified to uh.." Dean glanced down between them to enjoy how Cas's dick lovingly nudged against his tummy, "endow."

That leaking cock was just begging to be sucked. But establishing his full support and enthusiasm with this 'special project' took precedence. Choosing torture over dick was an unforgivable crime against Dean's soul, but there was nothing for it.

He never picked up a blade. He kept an adequate distance from further blood splatter. And he did his damndest tuning out the soul's seemingly never ending cycle of desperate pleading, screaming, and gurgling before he'd once more be healed anew. But sure as shit by night’s end, he'd earned that pathetic little participation trophy.

In the morning's first light, he found himself shockingly at ease with the direction and support he'd bestowed upon his lover. Part of him was sick. His stomach certainly was, as he struggled walking back to their room for a shower.

"Cas, what were his crimes? The one we..” Odd he was only sobering under the weight of what they'd done after the fact.

“Pedophilia. Over the years, I've often heard those afflicted referred to as having a special place in Hell. It's time it were true.”

Dean could find no fault in that philosophy. Nor his part in the punishment. For him it was just. End of story.

“There's no coming back from that in my book. Glad you're keeping yourself.. productive.”

Over the following days and nights, the initial revulsion and disgust with what needed to be done began to dull.

He'd stayed at Needham for two weeks. The thought of leaving Cas for any amount of time had him riddled with anxiety. Creeping paranoia had led him to assume texting Sam beyond perfunctory greetings and exchanges were too great a risk. No. He had to go back.

His soul yearned for Cas already. "I don't want to leave you. We fix this and I never will."

Cas hugged him with crushing desperation, which may have bruised a rib or two, but he'd cherish any physical reminder of Cas regardless. Fully aware that the sinister curse was spreading at an alarming rate, he was also forced to recognize a change in himself. It was stronger in this house, this environment. And it scared the hell out of him.

“I love you, Dean. Will you miss me?”

“Hell yes,” he whispered before passionately kissing Cas once more.

“Give my regards to Sam and Jack,” Cas requested.

“Will do. Lemme check in and do some laundry. I'll be back when I can. You're doing alright. Stronger than most. I'm proud of you.”

“Until next time,” Cas issued with a golden flare in his once cerulean eyes.

For the past few weeks he'd been struggling to breathe, and hadn’t realized how badly until he rolled down Baby's window, sucking clear air into his lungs.

Okay he was not proud of Cas. And the more distance there was between himself and the asylum, the more distressed he became with his own involvement.

This was wrong.

And yet, it didn't feel as wrong as it should.


	4. Chapter 4

Relief consumed Sam, watching a haggard brother appear on the stairs, even if his descent was more ghost like than human. Barely a whisper was spoken between them as Dean exhaustedly brushed past on the way to his room. Over the next few days, however, Sam's mollification was systematically replaced by confusion and mounting concern.

Dean had been irritable at best, and damn near combative at times, when the most trivial of frustrations occurred around the bunker. Like the time the lint trap in the dryer hadn't emptied correctly, Sam heard him beating the innocent machine nearly to death and ran to intervene. An hour later he'd found the dryer outside, ripped from the wall vent looking suspiciously like someone had tried lighting it on fire.

When Dean's copious stash of gummy bears had gone missing within the first few hours, he'd gone on a tirade, accusing Jack of eating them all, until Sam had found about seven bags in the trash next to the table holding the mountain of angel lore books Dean had managed to fall asleep on in the archives room. Sam hadn't even wanted to confront him about the plethora of empty, styrofoam and cellophane wrapped steak packages, he knew for a fact hadn't been cooked.

Sam had thought it impossible to drain the bunker’s supply of hot water. Yet Dean's shower schedule had suddenly jumped to him taking four a day under scalding hot temperatures for half an hour at least. He knew this because Dean had also taken to perusing the bunker wearing less and less clothing, and Sam could see scratches and gruesome red splotches on his skin from first degree steam burns.

Then he'd caught Dean twice at least, sitting at the breakfast table, exhausted and eating mountains of barely cooked bacon, naked. To say Sam was worried, was putting it mildly. He recognized from the second Dean returned from the asylum, he'd need some time to recalibrate. Inner conflict ping ponged between understanding his brother was enduring an emotional crisis, and knowing there was no stopping the clock.

Whatever happened there had taken a toll, and yet on every occasion since his return Sam tried delicately broaching the subject for a report, a random explosion in anger or other shockingly odd behavior seemed to be cutting his intentions off at the pass.

Almost a week had passed since his homecoming, and Sam would allow silence on the matter no longer. One way or another, Dean was gonna talk.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

"You've been back five days. What's the status with Cas?"

His knew his reluctance to spill was evident, but Dean didn't dig in his heels, appreciating the space Sam had provided which had allowed him to reach this relatively calm moment.

"He's torturing souls."

The revulsion was obvious and expected. Sam exuded sadness more than anything, but he struggled to mask a cursory assessment of Dean, which only exasperated the circumstances.

"God dammit, just ask! At least give me that. Or are we both under the microscope here?"

"No, of course not! I'm just worried. D-did you?"

"Advisory capacity only. Go ahead and stack the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an on the table and I'll swear on the holy trinity, if it's gonna make you feel better."

Tension in Sam's shoulders relaxed a little, but his face remained rife with concern.

"Won't lie. Took going some dark places to not 'break character' and bolt. We need to find something and find it fast. He's slipping, Sam."

"Were you able to find any spells or lore in there?"

"You mean aside from obtaining the equivalent of a degree in Demonic Law? No. I faked an interest in his administrative duties hoping something would turn up. The only concrete takeaway from the last two weeks is me dying of boredom if I gotta sit through any more amendment proposals from the Church of Satan."

"Does Cas have a cook, or a chef?"

Dean's face went white. "He's not Lilith! He's still Cas!"

"I'm not asking about him! You're losing weight. You'd think with the newly acquired perks of leadership, the least he could do is ensure you're well fed!"

"Dean? When did you get back?" Jack smiled from the hall corridor. He rushed into the library and crushed him with a bear hug.

When Dean issued a painful yelp Jack jumped back, with eyes as wide as saucers.

"Lemme see," Sam insisted.

"You're in so much pain." It wasn't an accusation but a statement. Jack was in disbelief and raised Dean's shirt, which revealed a section of his side decorated in black and purple.

Between Jack's befuddlement and Sam's blazing stare, he was starting to feel like a cornered animal. But when Jack pressed a gentle hand to the sensitive area, the sensation of being healed sent Dean into orbit.

“Your injuries were worse than you realized. Castiel cares about you so much."

Dean glared at the kid’s unwitting betrayal of his injury.

"But this kind of hurt doesn't come from love. You both feel..different."

Instantly pulling away, Dean snarled, "What the fuck, Jack?! You had no right! Do you have any idea what you've just done? Stay the hell away!"

The kid shrank from him and skulked out of the room. Dean regretted his actions immediately, but Jack didn't realize what he'd just taken from him, and there was no way to make him understand. But his wrath, so easily triggered as of late, left him confused, and aware he wasn't behaving like himself.

Right away, Sam was growling in his face.

"Don't you EVER yell at him like that, especially for healing you or anyone else. He had every right. He can sense the pain that's apparently far worse than you're letting on and trying to cover up. I, I-I can't even talk to you right now."

And like a storm blowing itself out, his brother was gone.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

The chilly March air was reviving. When Sam had left the bunker, going for a drive wasn't an option. He needed to run the anger out of his system. He paced himself for quite the trek.

What the fuck was Dean thinking? Was he even thinking? Didn't he know his ribs were broken? He sure as hell felt the pain. When Cas visited, Dean got roughed up. Sam knew it wasn't outright intentional, and getting a momento hickey was one thing. But bruised and broken ribs weren't okay, even if Cas wasn't aware of his own strength. It reminded him of what he'd come home to after Stull.

January 2020

Hours after leaving the cemetery, Sam and Jack ghosted through the halls of home. When padding by Dean's room everything in his hands clattered to the floor in chaotic disturbance. An angel’s deep, bristling annoyance hummed from inside the disaster zone. His jaw fell as he took in what appeared to be the wake of an F5 tornado.

Dean's desk was overturned and splintered in half, the broken chair punched through the left wall held firm. Water leaked over the tile floor from the cracked sink and pipe which hung sideways. Dean’s dresser was on its side, his books haphazardly thrown about, some below the waterline, were thoroughly waterlogged. Plaster, support beams, and insulation hung from the ceiling. Most of the light bulbs and lamps were smashed, and sections of brick torn from the wall boasted several coatings of ash in the definitive shape of wings.

Cas was resting on the ribboned remains of the bed sheets. His posture displayed a protectiveness of Dean, whose sleeping form looked far worse than when they’d zapped out of Stull in the heat of passion. Fear gripped him for a moment.

“Did you kill my brother?” Sam breathed in shock.

A smile, languid and dark, crept across Cas's face. His eyes were yellow embers as he laughed with a hint of vitriol, “Oh Sammy, Sammy. Hardly. In fact I revived him. Several times.”

Asleep on his stomach, Dean's back showcased a mess of cuts, scrapes, bruises and ash marks. “Why haven't you healed his wounds from the Empty?”

“I have. He requested I not touch those he sustained, after we left."

Sam walked off suspecting that Cas's bond with Dean might be one of the few tethers the angel had to his fading former self. So far it had proven incredibly strong. He hoped with everything he had that it proved unbreakable.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

Dean went straight to Jack's room and apologized.

"You meant well. It was a knee jerk reaction, but that doesn't make it right. My headspace isn't your fault or your problem. I'm sorry."

"Why would you want to keep hurting? The sickness you feel from missing him is different from when he was in the Empty. It's worse. Why add more?"

"Guess I'm willing to keep every bit of our time together, which you should know for future reference, isn't the healthiest mindset."

"None of you are examples of good health. Although Sam tries the hardest. What's a hickey?"

"Purple. Fun to get. And best kept to yourself."

Dean saw the kid's eyes drop to his side, then back at him in question. He explained to Jack, "Sam's got this one wrong. But not the other ones. You shouldn't look like a bar fight vic after 'being' with someone-"

"You've been looking like a bar fight vic after Cas visits and I feel you holding on to the pain like a teddy bear. Why are you telling me one thing but doing the opposite?"

Touché. So he liked it a little rough at times. Cas had been dialing it down, but it was still a work in progress.

"He's working on self control. It's complicated. Aaand I realize how bad that just sounded while not explaining anything. But still, it's compl-"

"Like sex complicated? Or do as I say, but not as I do kind of complicated?"

Shit. "Both."

Jack sat on the bed, his hands neatly folded in his lap, waiting expectantly with an endearing smile.

"Now's not the time kid. Sorry. We break the curse, bring him home, I promise we'll have that talk."

The kid’s face fell. Hard.

"Hey, I'm giving you my word, alright?"

"It's not that."

"Something else on your mind?"

"You and Cas love each other so much. Your bond, it's really powerful. I don't understand why its strength can't break the curse."

"This isn't some fairy tale. Wish it were that easy. There's a reason why a simple kiss breaks the spell and love conquers all in those stories."

Jack was all ears, but braced for the explanation.

"Kids don't need to know that a hundred year coma is a cakewalk compared to what real curses do. They can kill, or worse. And if there's even a way to reverse it, the price is steep."

"How steep?"

"Sometimes leaves the vic in worse shape than when the curse was intact. They'll live, but depending on the cost, they may not want to."

Jack pulled out his laptop and started searching. "I broke the curse in that necklace and saved Lydia, even though Cas said fairy tales don't work that way. If you're burning the midnight oil then so am I."

"I appreciate the effort."

And he really did. The kid’s morale was such, that he decided against elucidating on the meager statistical outcomes and left a hopeful Jack in his room, whistling while he worked.

Dean had promised himself he'd stay put for two weeks to clear his head. Cas deserved help from someone who was firing on no less than all cylinders. He just hoped he had enough strength left to maintain conviction. His body was practically levitating with need to be with Cas again. Their relationship had only just begun and he was jonesing something fierce.

Sure there was this sudden surge in sexual appetite, which at forty he'd noticed had been waning for some time. He found himself unable to keep from wandering off upwards of six times a day to rub one out just to take the edge off. Although it wasn't just the sex Dean was missing, of course. He wanted to be held, kissed, listen to what his love had been up to..hell anything, so long as he was beside Cas.

He hardly slept. The tiniest things set him off. Nothing improved his mood. He was just a grumpy mess. And why was he still so goddamned hungry? On day six, Dean gave up and packed early. Then he texted Sam who'd bailed on his sour ass with Jack to check on a possible cursed tattoo parlor, and hit the road.

Dean pulled up to the same scene as before, but the oppressive clouds didn't yield the same chill and unease as before.

He didn't care how flying through the halls to the throne room made him look like a crazed, lovesick teen. When he found Cas waiting for him with open arms, suddenly all that was wrong with the world felt right.

"I missed..you...I..missed you a lot," Dean mumbled in between kisses.

Cas immediately groaned into his mouth while his tongue seductively welcomed him back, along with an arm around his shoulders and a hand firmly squeezing his ass.

"Mmmm, Dean I've been starving for you."

Not being a fan of PDA, he surprised himself with how little fucks he gave about who was witnessing this potentially torrid lovers reunion unfolding before them.

Cas lifted him, bag and all, wrapping his legs around his very naked waist, and took them to the bedroom. The second they entered, Dean's clothes were off and Cas had miraculously insta prepped him, sliding right in from behind, and fuuuuuck did it feel great. He made a mental note to ask him about that later.

Dean coveted being held in stillness. The bed absorbed the weight of his knees as his back was lovingly cradled into Cas's broad chest. He was being gifted time, adjusting to the satisfying fullness from his angel.

One sharp tug on his hair and his head tilted, exposing his neck. Cas's hot breath breezing down the vulnerable skin left Dean's heart thundering. The delicious anticipation of knowing his teeth were centimeters away, and having no clue when they'd strike, was what his foreplay dreams were made of.

A warm hand sheathed his cock with pleasant pressure. Teeth raked over his pounding pulse. The building sensations from pushing, pulling, and filling were punctuated by the bliss of incisors piercing his arterial erogenous zone. He harbored no fear of bleeding out because Cas was right there to heal, if need be. For him, the trickle down his chest and fiery mouth at his throat was intoxicating. Occasionally, Cas bestowed wet kisses along his jaw. When capturing his mouth, their tongues would swirl around in a dark dance.

Dean was pleading for Cas to let him come when he heard a "Sir, the one in cell eight is re-"

He hadn't realized Cas left the door open. Swift movement to his left was preceded by a loud, squishy sound. Dean, Cas, and most of the room had been redecorated in blood from Tweedle Dumber's vessel, who'd made the mistake of interrupting them.

A deep growl rumbled from Cas's chest and reverberated down Dean's spine. His lover just detonated a guy who'd covered them in chunks of skin and muscle tissue. Of all the possible protests Dean could make, the one his brain made priority of was, "Jesus Cas, fuck me harder next time you do that. C'mon, this all you got?"

Before he could even blink, he was bent over on all fours atop the California King size bed. Cas grabbed his hips and gave him the pounding of the century. His knees crackled under the pressure of an angel fucking him within an inch of his life.

An inhuman, guttural sound was emanating from behind and Dean couldn't help blowing his load the louder and more primal it became. Cas fucked him through his orgasm, then kissed away the bits of demon meat suit he'd been drenched in moments earlier, along with his own vital fluids spilled from their next level blood play. Between the biological eruption and tender care Cas was administering, Dean found it both alarming and endearing.

Cas was nowhere near finished, but Dean was happy to push through any ensuing sensitivity, ‘cause getting railed by the dorky little guy in a trench coat was actually pretty mind blowing. As Cas resumed his rhythm, Dean's post orgasmic mood turned a tad demanding and his angel was ever eager to indulge.

"That's it angel, fuck me harder.."

Dean loved being pushed down with his ass angled in the air. It slowed the pace some, but Cas had the thickest cock he'd ever seen and did this quirky little swiveling, grinding motion with his hips once he could go no further. And damn if it didn't make Dean see stars.

"Uhh.. pound me deep like that! Pull my hair. Make it hurt!"

Dean felt fingers grasping at the roots, yanking his head back slightly, and moaned when it stung. His angel hit peak rhythm, his burning grip was bumping Dean into a hormonal haze. Cas was slamming him against the headboard, which splintered and cracked the closer he brought himself to orgasm for the first time that night. Dean loved feeling him come, the closeness it brought was for him the best part. Well, that and angelic perks of requiring no recovery.

"What's your deal? Bliss love company?" Dean managed to breathe out sometime later, during a series of blow jobs Cas was raining upon him. He laid back, among the shredded, blood splattered pillows with feathers still swirling about his head like a jacked up Hell halo.

"Mmmm can't...have...you coming...dry," he answered in between sucking on Dean's swollen head, kissing down his wet shaft, and gently massaging his balls, which felt sinfully larger and heavier than when he'd come minutes earlier.

"I've developed a taste for your cum. I don't require sustenance, but I crave you incessantly when you’re gone. Your blood too," he moaned while welcoming a gentle thrust from Dean, giving him the entire length of his cock.

"Well absence makes the heart, or whatever else, grow fonder. I can't go more than a few hours back home without jerking off thinking about you buried in my ass. Guess I'm just hungry for it."

"I can give you things your appetite can't be sated with elsewhere. You feel it don't you? Your insatiable need for orgasm is prevalent, and I'm more than happy to fuck you into eternal oblivion. But that's not the only thing you're hungry for, is it Dean?"

He lingered on the edge, hands nearly ripping out Cas's raven mane, his legs spread, hips pumping, cock thrusting at a delicious pace into his angel's needy mouth.

"Y-yes! Fuck I can feel it! Oh God, that mouth of yours, uh jeezus keep sucking! Yeah ..just like that ugh!" Dean bellowed as he filled Cas's mouth and throat with pulses of cum for probably the sixth time that night. But who was counting, right?

A few minutes later when his heart rate lowered enough to not explode out of his chest, Cas whispered in between feathery kisses, "Still twitching for something." An observation, not a question.

"What is this? I don't- I'm not good right now. I mean I am, but this doesn't feel right."

Pulling him up into his lap, the embers in Cas's eyes flared with an unsettling enthusiasm as he slid into Dean's stretched hole and began a lazy, relaxed rhythm. "I can help you feel right again. Help you make something unjust become righteous. Come with me."

Again, as if in some mystical loop dream, mere minutes passed while Dean unapologetically used his cock to make himself come, screaming as Cas tore into his neck, coming inside him like Vlad the fucking Impaler-literally. When Dean was finished squirming around on him, Cas playfully threw him back on the bed and sucked him clean.

Dean was lifted as if he weighed no more than air itself. When he felt himself set down, Cas mojo'd the rest of themselves clean, and extended his hand. As soon as he stepped towards it he fell onto the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Heads Up**  
This chapter contains brief subject matter requiring the tags 'mention of underage polymarriage' and 'implied underage suicide.' I want to make it very clear that I am not singling out any specific faith in the mention, as there are multiple faith's which practice this.

"Shit! Cas, I gotta eat again." Dean was completely confused by how fast his knees had buckled under him. As soon as he tried standing up they buckled again, crackling like a chip bag crunching inside his knee cap.

Cas regarded him with the raised eyebrow of suspicion, while helping him up.

"I'm fine, don't you dare heal me. I love the feeling of us..our time together. Just really hungry."

"You eat far more than you used to. Although I don't sense Tapeworm or any other parasite."

"Just comes and goes I guess."

Dean staggered down the hall with the help of Cas, stubbornly insisting he needed to just 'walk it off'. When entering the throne room, he found another soul strung up and prepped. Panic briefly seized him.Unbidden images, as static shocks, flashing in the back of Dean's mind stung painfully.

_Ringing screams outlasted the short visions, like echoes digging into his skin with razor sharp talons, ripping his flesh and clinging for resonance across an infinite space. He couldn't tell anymore if it was sweat burning his eyes or blood, but he was so close to the crest. That split second of relief in which he strained to keep his headspace during his eternal torment was the only thing preventing him from issuing the one simple word that would cease his endless suffering._

_And yet, time seemed suspended in this cycle. The healing should've occurred. The stitching sounds which caused Dean to experience the most excruciating chills were late and before he knew what slipped from his lips, the absence of pain was the only thing that mattered. And for a moment, the silence paired with overwhelming reprieve was almost more blissful than the lack of physical torment in which he'd spent the last thirty years._

The woman before him bound in chains whimpered pitifully and flinched as though in severe discomfort, despite minimal restraint. Cas peeled the tape from her mouth unhurriedly with a courteous smile. Dean watched her eyes widen as several small legs extended from the corners of her mouth. Her lips curved into a large "O" and he cringed when at least four black widows exited and settled on her cheeks, nose, and right eyelid.

Clearing his throat to conceal a struggle with constitution Dean roughly asked, "And what was this one's crime against humanity?"

A satin-like touch around his waist supported him as the last sway from his shaky knees presented itself. Fortunately it was hidden from the woman by Cas's natural loving embrace. Dean was handed a stack of photographs which he began to examine.

Young teen boys in a school locker room were dressing, showering, and animatedly talking back and forth. Anger burned and squeezed at Dean's insides. They were unaware their privacy was so heavily violated. He sighed, all too familiar with harassment from women of all ages in his own youth for being a "teen hunk."

"There's more," Cas elucidated.

"I've got the idea. Don't need anymore pictures."

"You misunderstand. The photos are just part of her transgressions."

"Oh?" Dean wasn't interested in further evidence, yet knew Cas would provide it anyways, to soothe his troubled conscience.

"She submitted these and many, many others over the years, to an online group of women who share similar tastes."

The woman teared up, and launched into a begging frenzy in a language Dean vaguely recognized but didn't understand. Knowing Cas would translate for him, he delicately pressed a finger to her lips in a silent command for her to please shut the fuck up.

"You didn’t violate these kids just that one time when you took the photos. Every perverted stare at their bodies bathes them in your disgusting gaze. Each time one of your friends logs on and does who-the-fuck-knows with their images, their privacy is raped. It doesn't matter that they haven't suffered physical pain from an unforgivable intrusion, because you've taken something just as innocent and vulnerable. Cas, did they know about this?"

"There was a class action suit brought against the online group."

Returning to her pathetic cries, Dean seethed. "You're easy on the eyes. Or were. You like taking pictures so much, how about a makeover, huh? That's turning a frown upside-down!"

"Face lift?"

"Nice Cas," he proudly complimented with a glimmer in his eye,"Yeah, face lift."

"You'll be wearing one purdy smile when we're done here."

His heart rate was increasing. Dean couldn't tell if it was from anger, revulsion, fear, or some sick anticipation. As he grabbed a tool, additional flashbacks railroaded him with the raspy voice of his once demon tormentor-turned-teacher.

_In the absence of blinding pain, he'd found himself alarmingly willing to absorb the words which still held the power to shake him to his core. Calmly and quietly, Alastair began imparting upon Dean the explicit measure of satisfaction to be taken from gaining experience in this arena._

_"You've never felt joy from the languorous, pushing and pulling of serrated steel between shoulder blades."_

_"You haven't known the exquisite pleasure of slicing through a nipple like it's fresh, gourmet pancetta."_

_"You've not yet taken pride in eliciting the musical staccato of screams which accompany languidly peeling off delicate layers of flesh from the bottom of someone's foot."_

_"Nor have you had the privilege of listening to the melodious crescendo of ragged breathing as they dance down a gauntlet of glass, tacs, staples, and legos glued to the floor, submerged in top shelf single malt scotch, aged thirty years."_

A shiver and wave of nausea threatened to betray his performance, sweat waterfalled down his face and chest. Every breath he took seemed too harsh, deep, and fast. There was no longer time to stall. He'd hoped to avoid such hands-on activities, but if he failed in this, he failed Cas, and all hope of a contented future with him.

Dean made sure the blade glinted in the sun rays pouring in from the window, showing her its deep serrations. Starting from under her chin, he languidly plunged the knife all the way through, puncturing through the middle of her wriggling tongue and grazing the tippity top of the roof. In one sweep, the serrations caught and ripped her tongue down below her mandible and dangled in front of her smooth, creamy throat.

The woman tried screaming, but made only a gurgling sound.

"Sh sh sh...I know what I'm doin'. I've watched a few of those reality plastic surgery shows, they're a guilty pleasure."

He took the serrated edge and pressed through the layers of skin at the back of her jaw, careful to avoid major veins. The layers of dermal tissue yanked and tore from her mandible as he followed an imaginary line he'd drawn while tracing her face earlier. It went all the way up to her temple and back into her hairline.

The OCD in Dean endeavored for symmetry, so he enjoyed cutting up the other side of her face to match. Making one last incision, it tore along her chin line. He handed his knife to Cas, and standing behind the woman, gripped the torn flesh from her face. The tendons delectably popped while he slowly peeled the mostly intact face away, so it was a flop of skin resting on the top of her head.

The snapping sound from tension ripping the deeper layer of tissue and facial muscles was satisfying. The woman helplessly thrashed. Blood burst from her mouth and face as Dean shred the remaining connective tissue from her forehead and threw the face to Jeffrey in the corner. Ironically, the guy cringed away from it.

"Jeffrey! Find me a Polaroid camera, photo shoot ready please," Dean politely ordered while keeping his eyes on his prize.

A few moments later, a silent Jeffrey practically threw the camera at Dean, and skulked back to where he'd been watching an episode of Extreme Facial Makeover Edition. Lucky for him, Dean caught it and proceeded to take an obscene amount of pictures.

"Cas! You try."

Accepting the camera with glee, Dean noticed Cas eager to join in all the fun. When all was said and done, there were so many photos taken that Jeffrey was given the task of using them to wallpaper the woman's cell.

"Enjoy your wall decor, bitch." Dean traipsed to his bathroom for a scalding hot shower, thankful Cas didn't follow.

Dean lay down in their bed, pretending to sleep so he could quietly process what he'd done. For a while he repeatedly twitched under the covers with extreme anticipation of Alastair's face singing right in his own. But the vision never came. He'd calmed enough before its onslaught. Which indicated something else entirely.

Later, when Cas cautiously crept into their bed to check on him and snuggle in close, Dean couldn't bring himself to tell his angel the truth. He was more okay with what he'd done than he'd ever thought possible, and he was already curious what Cas had in store for him the following night.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

A few days passed with Dean noticing a growing excitement akin to a kid at Christmas, for the work in which he'd begun finding a measure of purpose.

Cas seemed delighted with how well Dean supported the renovations for his 'special place' and the nature of its work. Each night Dean still worried heavily he'd lose control, crack, and hemorrhage his PTSD marbles all over the throne room floor at the sight of the soul awaiting them. And each night he'd needed less and less strength to push through.

One night they'd strolled in, hand in hand, and the scene had Dean doing a double take. When Cas explained this seventy two year old Jabba the Fuck had taken nineteen wives under the age of thirteen, and the emotional carnage alone he'd left in his wake had already delivered eight of the wives to heaven by their own hands, any distress he'd been feeling vanished with relief, as a cool breeze on a scorching summer's day.

Dean gifted the elderly gentleman with what seemed a warm smile in greeting. Claire wasn't even his daughter, and over the legal age of adulthood, yet had anything befallen her-well now, he actually knew exactly what he'd do, because he'd already done it, hadn't he?

Seconds later, a bored looking Tweedle Dumb strolled up, holding a fast food bag as if it contained something even he considered truly vile. When Dean opened the Burger King bag and examined the double Whopper inside, he looked at the demon and prodded.

"You spit in this? Cause if you did, you know what he's gonna do to you, right?" Dean threatened, tossing his thumb in Cas's direction.

The demon looked scandalized at the accusation. "No, and I didn't backwash in your goddamn liter of cola either, you fucking ungrateful asswipe-"

Aaaand there went Tweedle Dumb with the snap of Cas's fingers.

"Manners, manners." He addressed the remaining demons silently at his beck and call.

Then, to one demon standing in a corner with old and new carvings in his skin, he commanded, "Jeffrey, you've been on thin ice. Redeem yourself and clean this up. Use your tongue."

Dean made quick work of the meal. Afterwards, bestowing the most tender, precious kiss upon Dean's lips, Cas's eyes flared a nostalgic blue. "I've been longing for more teachable moments from you. Now my love, shall we begin?"

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

"God's not coming. Nobody is, best get it through your skull." Dean kicked Jabba in the head, which temporarily shut him up. "Rusty melon baller, Cas." He paused before continuing on. "Ya know, I was feeling pretty sweet til you brought douche canoe Chuck into this," scowled Dean. "Now I'm feeling kinda spicy. Jeffrey! Get us a couple of Carolina Reapers and some duct tape would ya?"

As the demon gladly scurried off in search of the pepper, Cas regarded the fruit tool with curiosity.

"I'm confused, what does this have to do with a melon?"

"You use it to scoop out ball shaped pieces from the inside of melons."

Pursing his lips then smirking, Cas seemed to make up his mind how he'd like to employ the tool. "I'd imagine this would clear enough space in the melon to hold something else, correct?"

"Bingo. You could even put all the fruit back in, make a nice salad."

"A spicy salad."

"Whatever floats yer boat, angel."

Dean watched as Cas flipped it in his hand like he'd done with his blade. For a brief moment, a pulse of excruciating nostalgia hit hard, but vanished when the soul began screaming bloody murder. Cas started making room for the treat Jeff would come back with, and the moist contents of the guy’s colorectal cavity splooshed against the stone floor.

The demon returned with two peppers, just as requested. One Reaper went in Jabba's mouth, the other up his ass. The duct tape ensured they stayed put.

"Not silence, but it's golden nonetheless." Cas's statement couldn't have been more accurate.

Wearing a disgruntled expression, Dean waltzed up to him while holding a filleting knife, and switched it out for a curved one. He watched as Cas bent down, slicing through more of Jabba's blubberous tissue. Deciding it was an opportunity for a snuggle sesh, he enjoyed some delectable skin to skin.

Cas, so focused on his task and doing it well, was hot. Really hot. He carved a C in the guy's gelatinous belly, and the yellowish gray tissue burst out with a satisfying pop. Dean lightly nipped at Cas's ear lobe while he continued writing his name in cursive, since there was so much surface area to work with.

Closing his eyes, Dean allowed the sounds of this scene to wash over him. Cas gently swayed as he labored to draw out the sweet opening of flesh with graceful sweep of his hand. Dean guided it, urging him to continue writing a new surname of Winchester down the man's inner thigh, stopping at the femoral artery.

"What lovely handwriting you have, it reminds me of calligraphy."

Dean beamed with pride at the compliment. "The better to brush and stroke you with."

Cas issued a throaty chuckle while including an exclamation point after the surname, which baptized them both in warm, viscous red blood.

Practically purring, Dean was unable to control his mouth and softly whispered in his lovers' ear amidst the twitches and screams, "God damn who knew watching you work would be such a turn on? I want to fuck you. Right here. Now."

But Jabba was gushing a little too quickly, so Dean handed over a hot iron to cauterize it and keep the good times rolling.

His angel turned, eyes lighting up with great joy. "I forgot! I have a gift for you."

Cas's smile was so radiant Dean almost sang in reaction. Instead, he swept his tongue along the parting of his love's flushed, crimson lips.

The combination of Cas's lips and taste of the fresh blood anointing them carried Dean higher than a kite. As did the dripping red hands kneading his bare ass cheeks, and tugging him against a marble hard erection rubbing on his tum.

Dean purred in pleasure. "Mmmm, now that is a gift. Already unwrapped and ready to use. Mind if I take care of this delectable uprising?"

"I have the perfect place for you to kneel and serve. Let's finish prepping Fat Bastard, then you can sate yourself."

Biting his lower lip, Dean beheld Cas, sheepish and glowingly in love. To him, he didn't think he'd ever seen anyone more perfect than his angel naked, smiling like the sun, and covered in blood splatter. Fuck, it was hot. But now, ironically, Jabba was a temporary cockblocker, and that just wouldn't do.

"You are one gluttonous son of a bitch, you know that?" Dean asked, sliding his arms back around Cas as more blood splatter from the curved blade finally moved beyond the adipose into the final layer just below the sternum.

The soul shook his head, insisting he wasn't. Dean was in no mood for his false professions of innocence. "Pull the Reaper from the 'party down south' and let the fun begin."

Cas regarded Dean with an almost innocent eagerness as he did as told, then awaited further instruction.

"Grab that Iron Spider there will ya?"

Reaching over to the massive table littered with all manner of garish-looking tools and devices, Cas took the gruesome, hook-slash-plier device in hand.

"I used that breast ripper myself a few times back in the day, but I'm a fan of finding alternative uses for things. As tig as them man bitties are, I wanna see how long it takes Cas here to remove your prostate with that thing."

The man was screaming again, but this time with the Reaper having somewhat emulsified in his mouth, he was now experiencing its full potential.

They waited a few moments for Jabba's lower cavity to empty and then Dean assured him, "No worries, we're not gonna administer that beauty without prepping you first. We'll even give you a nifty place to sit until you're all ready to go."

Dean motioned for Cas to snag a couple of Black Eyes and hoist Jabba upright. Afterwards, he walked over to a cluster of wooden piecemeal devices in the corner, and dragged one over resembling a barstool from the nineteenth century, with a metal pyramid fastened to the top. The mischief in his angel's eyes told Dean Cas was enjoying this new found sort of foreplay just as exciting as he was.

Jabba began furiously shaking his head while his slicked-up blob of an opened stomach jiggled through another round of contract, barf, swallow, repeat.

"This here's the Judas Cradle. After the guy who betrayed the one meant to save humanity. You had a choice. Could've sent your wives back home to reach adulthood, or at least shown them human kindness can exist without conjugal obligations. You chose wrong. So yer gonna sit in the corner and think about what you've done."

Jeff & Co hoisted Jabba the Fuck's fat ass up, and slid his bonds across the metal piping along the ceiling into the room’s corner. Then they lowered him onto the Cradle, the sharp apex of the pyramid penetrating him the more his obesity met gravity, and pulled him down on it. By the time they let go of Jabba's wrist ropes, he was howling again, with the tape still ensuring the Reaper stayed intact, while blood was expeditiously trickling down the legs of the antiquated chair.

"Now angel, where were we? Hmm, a southern uprising, now I remember."

Cas led him by the hand and comfortably sat on his throne, then gave Dean permission to approach and kneel.

As he wrapped his hands around his angel's hips and zealously took his entire length down his throat, bliss pulsed through him like the glorious push of a sedative.

Time was lost; all he knew was the song of his lover whispering encouraging pleasantries and ensuing sighs of bountiful contentment. He longed to draw this brand of torture out for his Prince. Bring him to new heights and take forever doing it.

Some time later, when he'd been enjoying Cas's voracious moans, he heard a few demons enter the room. They were nothing to him, no longer even mere annoyance.

Not even the genuine delight in his Prince’s voice seemed to garner so much as a fluttering rise in heart rate from Dean as he heard the words spilling forth from his lover’s lips.

"Good evening, Sam. To what do we owe this pleasure?"


	6. Chapter 6

A day earlier….

"This isn't up for negotiation Jack. Look, I'm sorry Dean's been kind of a dick the last few weeks," Sam tried explaining.

Jack looked up from his bag full of crumpled plaid and denim with a deadpan expression.

Sam admitted, "Alright, past few months, if we're being honest. But this is a Hell Lair. You can try selling me your 'I was born of this' ploy, but no."

Jack huffed and threw his hands up in despair.

"Besides, Rowena’s no angel herself. But I'd rather her teach you Bat Bogey hexes and get you drunk off your ass with Firewhiskey. You have no idea the horrors that exist there. Can't you see I'm trying to protect you!"

"From what exactly?” Jack challenged. “No offense, but after dying twice, the universe has relieved you of that duty."

Sam tried hiding how deeply both deaths ran. Dean had died multiple times, too. Didn't mean he'd ever not try to save Dean, or that each hurt less than the previous one.

Jack implored Sam to consider his logic, "Rabid dogs used to be useful once, too. Old Yeller was one of the classics you recommended. Let me help fix Dean and Cas so you don't have to put them down!"

"The boy has a point, Samuel. But. Sorry, Jack, you’re better off with me and the Firewhiskey." Rowena evidently had her ears on before the click of her stilettos hit the bunker’s corridor down to Sam's room where she'd just turned up.

Jack rolled his eyes in frustration. Although, Rowena seemed to "get" where Jack was coming from, and threw in a little something to sweeten the Adventures in Babysitting pot.

"Come on then," she offered while holding out her hand, "I can teach yae to conjure some whizbangs that make rude sounds and gestures. Between the whiskey and swirly fire, I'll have yae so blootered Sam'll be back before you remember he left."

"I'm two!" Jack loudly objected.

"I'm not." Rowena shot him a blank expression.

At that, Jack perked up and allowed himself to be swayed. What kid didn't want to learn how to create a giant glowing hand flipping someone off?

Sam knew the kid was in good hands when he left for the asylum, hoping his suspicions that Dean and Cas had fallen down some whackadoo rabbit hole were groundless. But his brother hadn't responded for days, and had been seriously going down hill as of late.

When Sam was greeted by some miserable naked demon dude with the name Jeffrey carved into his chest insisting he strip down to his skin at the asylum entry, he knew he wasn't gonna like what he found, no matter which pill he swallowed.

"How about I give you my clothes the day you ask for a salt rimmed margarita, you black eyed piece of shit! Where's my bro-"

Sam stopped short, finding a frozen blade at his neck. Pure fear filled the demon’s eyes as he held the knife. His hands bore the garish mark's of the stigmata only the holes were much larger.

"Them's the rules, man. I gotta take you in wearing nothing or not take you in at all. Please just do what I say, I-I can't take anymore punishment from him."

"Him?" Sam's voice simmered down to irritated concern.

"The Prince. And his lover. Fuck man, I don't know where they come up with half the shit they do. It's so much worse than the ones who were in charge before," Jeffrey's voice faltered.

"Explain," Sam barked. Screw the knife to his throat. As a guest in his house, Cas would never let him get ganked.

"When the Prince first showed up, he was different. Totally laissez-faire. But he's changed. The stuff he and Dean do, to the souls, I can't- if I screw up again... Just take your goddamn clothes off please. I promise not to touch you, or even look. Just do what I say, alright?"

As Sam stripped, he fought to understand what kind of treatment would render a demon, of all entities, so broken and terrified. He refused to believe Jeffrey's words about Cas and his brother, or give him his clothes. He clutched them around his midsection in some futile attempt at covering his nethers from the variety of threats the asylum contained.

The blade remained pressed to his throat when entering the throne room. What Sam saw shocked him to his core. Both his clothing and shoes fell to the floor in a heap, as all sense of modesty temporarily vanished.

He made eye contact with Cas who happily greeted with, "Good Evening Sam. To what do we owe this pleasure?"

He was speechless, processing the emaciated figure of his brother on his knees before a smiling Cas, blowing the angel with breathtaking enthusiasm.

"D-Dean? Dean?"

"Mmm m'busy Sam," came the errant reply.

Heartbreak and panic seized Sam. He struggled through stinted breath from the tightening in his chest, and stinging tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

"Jeffrey!" Cas snarled. He clapped his hands together in mock acceptance of some egregious faux pas the demon had committed, but had yet to realize. The guy flinched in terror at the sudden attention paid to his person, demon, whatever. "May I introduce Sam Winchester, since you seem to have lost your tongue."

Jeffrey shook in fear, glancing back and forth between Sam and Cas, beginning to understand something was very wrong, but still hadn't bought a clue.

"Otherwise known as, Dean's brother and one of my dearest friends," Cas informed, with his inflection implying a false sense of security.

Jeffrey's trembling only increased, though he remained unaware of what he'd done to displease his Prince.

"See anything wrong with this picture? Your blade at his throat for one? Or this brand of welcome in general?"

"I-I did just like you said your Majesty, Sir...he doesn't have any clothes on. Now he ain't even armed."

Cas's eyes ignited in a brilliant orange blaze. "He never has to be, in my presence. Drop the blade and get comfortable next to Fat Bastard over there. You can keep each other company, although neither of you will be speaking much. Remove your testicles please. Per the usual punitive method. _Tongue_," Cas whispered to Sam in hushed explanation.

Sam could smell Jeffrey's vessel soiling itself.

"That looks appetizing," Cas's snark was heavily laced with brimming anger.

"B-but, how-" Jeffrey was now sobbing.

Dean lifted his head and nonchalantly chimed in, "Doesn't matter. Since you sauced yourself, go ahead and enjoy the meatballs with that gravy like it's a New Year's dinner, and if a ball drops before midnight you'll be eating Jabba's junk too."

Cas silently laughed, "What he said."

The demon cried and skulked into the corner. He bent over, looking like he wished he'd ganked himself with the blade while he still had the chance.

"Cas, what've you done to him?" Sam cried.

Cas waved off Sam's concern. "Jeffrey? Nothing he didn't already do to himself-"

"Not him, Cas!"

"Your brother's appetite is gloriously insatiable. Mmmm..no idea he harbored such hunger for me, I really should've confessed my feelings for him ages ago. But he did have a rather large branch up his ass. Now he has me, as often and rigorously as he'd like."

Sam heard Dean growl, appearing to double his efforts in pleasing his Prince. He forced the bile down from his empty stomach, which was threatening to present with violent force when taking a closer look at the thinning, reddish skin stretched over his brother's protruding vertebrae. Within seconds Cas was spilling down Dean's throat, his eyes rolling back in divine satisfaction, and zero shame.

Sam observed immense pride throughout his brother's entire demeanor as he turned to address him.

"Appreciate the welfare check, Sammy," he issued while wiping the corner of his wet mouth and comfortably perching on Cas's lap. "How long you staying? The kid with you?"

"No. No, he's uh, he stayed home. Could I maybe have a beer? Give me the tour?"

"Why not? Let's go."

Jabba the Fuck's muffled hollering began drowning out Dean's words, and Sam accidentally glanced in his direction. He'd purposefully avoided looking around the place with too much focus.

"I'm handing out some good old fashioned Columbian neckties to the worst of the worst in this place now and then,” Dean jerked his thumb in Jabba’s direction, “this fat fuck in the corner decided it was a good idea to-"

"I don't want to know. Really. I'm sure he's earned it."

"Oh ho, and then some!" Dean beamed with a gleeful shimmer in his eyes.

It was a dagger to Sam's heart. Still awkwardly aware he and everyone else was naked, Sam kicked himself for leaving his clothes dumped on the throne room floor, and kept his hands in front of the goods at all times.

"Relax, Sam. Nobody's gonna hurt you here."

"Wasn't aware it was within your authority to guarantee that." Sam noted Dean's brief grin and disturbing calm while cracking open a couple of brewski's from his bedroom mini fridge. He motioned for his brother to proceed with the tour. After what he'd witnessed upon arrival, he possessed zero desire to linger in their personal, private space.

On the way down to the dungeon, he grew nervous with how easily a random demon silently approached Dean with a Wendy's take out bag, then vanished. His brother hadn't flinched, tensed, or displayed any defensive mannerisms. What'd this place done to him?

Pulling out a massive salad, Dean offered, "Wanna share?"

"Uh no, stopped by the Fresh Choice buffet on my way here. I'm good thanks. Glad to see you eating though," he sassed, wondering how he could eat at a time like this.

Sam had eaten both jack and shit since before leaving the bunker, but like hell was he gonna share a meal in this place with anybody. Growing more thankful for his lack of appetite, he tried banishing images of the massive guy at whom he'd accidentally gotten a gander. His fat tissue had been bursting out of several incisions and orifices caused by intentional, thorough mutilation.

"What're you talking about? I've been going through a monster food phase, can't seem to get enough. Cas sends his minions out every hour for grub. And yes, I eat salad Sam, try not to faint."

"Fainting's the last thing I want to do in this place," he confessed. His eyes roamed the walls of the tidied asylum and spotted the reno occurring in a corner of the basement.

"Cas is making some changes in this place."

"I hadn't noticed," Sam muttered sarcastically, with a slight chill and remembered the fatigue and fear in Jeffrey the demon eyes. He now wondered what other changes could've been happening as of late. Maybe there was merit to what Mr. New Year's Eve had said.

"Asmodeus had him and Lucifer holed up here, back when we had no idea he'd even been missing. It's gonna be a real special place."

"Oh yeah?" He really didn't want to know. But if he changed the subject he wasn't sure how to convincingly bring it back around later on, should shit hit the fan. And as he saw earlier…

"He's got a broadening taste for the punitive arts. Mostly souls with a predilection for kids. So he's repurposing the space down here for those who made those 'unfortunate' life choices."

"H-how are you doing with all this?"

Sam was swiftly losing the bile battle in his stomach -nope- now his throat. The tick tock of each passing second reminded via a punch in the gut, that it'd been on_ his_ firm suggestion Dean was here. To collect information intended to help the angel. He never imagined he'd start falling with Cas into this nightmare.

Dean shrugged his shoulders and briefly pondered the question. "I'm fine. The monsters Cas has diverted here, oh man lemme tell ya-"

"No. Like I said, I'm good. How is Cas doing this? Why?"

"Well somebody has to."

"Aren't there still plenty of somebodies in Hell?"

"Yeah, but none with my style Sam. He was so, so sloppy."

"And he needed you? The guy who once said he'd give anything not to have you do this...this work, specifically."

The tortured look in his brother's eyes ensured Sam gave him sincere, laser focus, listening to what he had to say.

"He's tethered to Hell by another's doing. Nothing you, I, or Rowena have found offers even a hint of change in his stars. Time's slipping through our fingers. He wants me, Sam. I'm not letting go. Cursed or not. His stars are my mine, too."

"I want both of you to come home. Now. Please, let's just go. You don't have to stay here all the time. Jack and I can give you guys plenty of privacy, hell, take one of the big rooms downstairs. Just come home. _Please_."

Sam knew the second he'd lost his fight when Dean stepped back with an expression that genuinely scared the shit out of him.

"My home is with Cas. Is Cas. If he can't leave this death sentence then I'm not leaving him to do this alone."

"But do what, exactly? Torture? You've never been able to talk about what happened all those years ago. You've spent years carrying it, and now because Cas says it's justified, that makes it okay?"

"Everyone knows what these souls have done is unforgivable, Sam! The Mark, my demon, the things I did ages ago, none of it compares to what's been coursing through me. Sometimes the only thing taking the edge off is being here with Cas."

He regarded Dean, searching in his eyes for anything he could exploit to bring him back.

"The Cas I know wouldn't want this. For himself or for you. I don't understand what's going on here, what's happening to you-"

"You're right, you don't. The Cas you knew is gone. What's left of him belongs to me. Always has. So if you don't like what you've found, your homophobic ass can just make like a tree and leave. You're the one who wanted info instead of letting me spend time with him on my terms. This is your fault."

Sam had been wrong. This was the dagger through his heart.

"Homophob--you self righteous ass, I never-"

"God forbid I have a little 'me time' after spending my life raising you! I dealt with the lies, your addiction, and starting the apocalypse. I put up with your soulless ass and the hallucination train you railroaded everyone with! Meanwhile, the guy who saved your ass and mine was left to rot in the hospital like he was no more than an afterthought."

How did this fall apart so fast?

"If you can't deal with 'what's happening,' with me not abandoning him, then follow your pathetic trail of clothes to the fucking door."

Both truths and twisted truths were wringing his stomach out like a wet dish towel. Sam was gonna hurl any second, from the depths of sorrow and violent anger mixing and churning inside him.

"I've never had a problem with you having anything for yourself! I've put up with the longing, and bickering, and how much you guys love each other for years, knowing it was useless to say anything until you pulled your head outta your ass, so don't you EVER accuse me of selfish homophobia!"

"Well that was real nice of you, keeping that to yourself all these years,” Dean scoffed. “I might've had far longer with him. Thanks for that."

How this had gone so far off the rails, Sam would never know. "Gimme a sign this is just some really exceptional method acting on your part. _Please_."

"I'll say it one more time. Leave."

"That's it. You're just gonna stay here, helping him torture until what? You waste away and die?"

"His health is no longer your concern Sam," Cas laid out with threatening intonation.

He hadn't heard Cas descend the stairs. The way he protectively hovered around the walking skeleton of his brother indicated attempts to lure him away were taken with grave offense by ruler of this realm.

"Consider him a defector, if you must. But Dean remains here willingly under my jurisdiction and law. As such, he's fully entitled to my protection, against those meaning harm or persuasion. Including you."

"Dean doesn't need protection from me! I'm just trying to get him some fresh air. Cas, can't you see the change in him?"

"He has purpose here. Chuck's bullshit spiral narrative, aka lazy, recycled plot lines dressed in drag, have left him feeling stagnant. He's getting back to the basics here, helping achieve vengeance for the young and defiled."

Now Dean spoke. "I'm no longer cleaning up Chuck's messes. I'm not his main bitch anymore. But this...this I can do. Not for him, not for you, not even myself. For the souls whose innocence was ripped away. You don't have to like it. But you're gonna leave it and me be. We clear, Sammy?"

"You don't mean that," Sam begged.

"The hell I don't."

"Cas, come on, this isn't him. Don't you wonder what's happening to him? Don't you care?"

"I love Dean,” Cas professed as he nuzzled against Dean’s cheek and hair, inhaling the scent of his lover, “he's a righteous man. He will do the work that brings him peace; if this is how it manifests, so be it."

Sam's eyes were stinging again from the blunt frustration pounding inside him. The tragedy of leaving Cas to his fate riddled him with sorrow, but the torment of leaving Dean with him? Impossible to fathom. He'd find a way to get him back if it was the last thing he ever did. In the meantime, this was a maddening stalemate.

His brother was Hell's most protected once again. Only instead of Cas battling to free the soul to whom he was bound, he now fought to chain Dean to this realm alongside him. Grief and rage overwhelmed Sam. He never imagined he'd have to fight against someone he loved as a brother to save his brother.

He pleaded with Dean through wild eyes, one more time. Cas held his brother's hand, conveying Dean was his, and his alone.

"Make sure you remember the distance from _Poughkeepsie_ to here, alright? Please."

Dean lifted his chin in defiance and gripped Cas's hand more tightly. A few hot tears burned as they spilled down Sam's face when turning to leave. Losing one brother over and over had been hard enough throughout the years. He never imagined losing Cas would hurt like this too.

Jeffrey the demon was still whimpering in the corner, unable to talk with his mouth full. Sam couldn't even bring himself to so much as glance in his direction.

As he was buckling his belt he heard Cas speaking to Dean.

"Aha, your gift! My apologies, I almost forgot."

"Wow. Cas this is really...I love it. Thanks buddy."

Sam couldn't help quivering at the brutal hunting knife's fixed blade and deep, curved serrations down the beveled edge. Dean glared at him with a twinkle in his eye, flipped the new blade in his hand, and headed towards the corner to pull Jabba the Fuck from his time out.

The knife was a beast. He barely made it off the front porch before yacking over the stair rail, realizing that was exactly what his brother was becoming. What Cas had already become.

Only when he closed the car door did he let his tears flow freely. Dean had been right about one thing. Sam had encouraged him to collect intel; which usually entailed stowing your own shit and undertaking skin crawling tasks. What the fuck had he been thinking, sending him here, of all places?

As Sam hightailed it back to Lebanon, he phoned Rowena and Jack, giving them a laundry list of things to begin researching until he returned. Over his dead body would he allow Dean and Cas's story to end in flames.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Public Service Announcement**  
My apologies to anyone named Janice.

"Consume a soul. Are you-" Sam dug deep, endeavoring to be an example for Jack, who was parked next to Rowena in the library surrounded by haphazardly scattered monographs, "effing kidding me?"

"Only part of one.” Jack assured. “But not just any soul. A special one. Pure."

In the background, Rowena had perched on the table as she delivered the startling news. "Children are out. _Obviously_."

Sam readily concurred. "_Obviously. _And we're not poaching from a random person either. What about one of us? Dean and I revirginized ourselves a few years back when we were locked in the bunker by Ketch."

Taken aback, she asked, "Sorry, yae did what?"

"Revirgi-look, forget why, is my soul pure enough for a band aid solution at least?

"What Azazel did to you as a wee bairn changed your DNA, I'm afraid. And your soul too. I'm not sure you'll ever be completely..clean."

She wasn't insulting him. But it was one more way he felt he was failing Dean.

She must've sensed his dejected mood plummeting. "Castiel needs something strong enough to purify his besmirched grace."

With helpful intent, Jack piped up, "He and I are close in species, you could take part of my-"

"NO!" Both Rowena and Sam yelled.

Thinking about it a moment, Jack concluded, "Fine. Clearly not the best idea."

Rowena offered, "Ideally, it would be someone he has an otherworldly connection to."

"Dean," Sam started, but Rowena had to suppress a chuckle.

"Oh, we know, they've seemed connected at the...well, _everything_."

Sam rolled his eyes in broiling frustration. "They have this bond. A connection that Cas mentioned once, years ago. Something about when a claim on a soul is made, it leaves a mark of sorts. He was the angel who pulled Dean from hell."

"A claim?" she perked instantaneously, "that explains why Dean is affected. What happens to Castiel happens to him through their bond."

"Didn't Cas save you too Sam? From my father?" Jack's face was so terribly innocent, Sam couldn't help but answer the awkward question.

"Yeah, but he, uh, sorta forgot my soul...or whatever. It was a solo mission. No back up. He did the best he could and it worked out in the end. But ah...no claim on me. I'm okay with that."

"How will we get a piece of Dean's soul? How can we even convince Cas to eat it? And what happens when he does?" Jack worried.

"Same as communion,” Rowena stated confidently. “If we purify Cas's grace with part of Dean's soul, both would recover nicely. Shouldn't have an effect on Dean really, and since souls are so potent, Castiel will be restored with very little. I know the spell to extract a bit of it, but it’ll be quite painful."

Sam shuddered, remembering when Cas "searched" for his. Dean had been through enough, but if this worked then so be it.

"The tricky part will be the angel. Jack, will you be able to restrain your father?"

"I should. What about the demons. Can I vaporize them?"

"Yes. Vaporize as many of them as you like," Sam encouraged.

"Rowena, can you teach me the spell you'll use on Dean?"

Sam watched in horror as Rowena took Jack's hands in hers and dramatically recited with an extra heavy accent, "_Fate be changed, look inside. Mend the bond torn by pride-_"

"_ROWENA!_" Sam protested, both scandalized and unable to stop laughing. It felt good and also very wrong laughing in such a serious moment.

"I've heard that somewhere before…" Jack suddenly fell into intense concentration, trying to recall where.

She immediately dropped Jack's hands and stomped lightly. "Och Alright! No Jack, I will not teach you the spell. It would be irresponsible of me to put something so powerful in the hands of someone so young. Do you understand?"

Jack nodded in mild disappointment.

Sam understood the kid just wanted to help. "We'll need you to teleport us there. If any demons are left over or one of us is injured, we'll need to get back here fast."

He accepted the task with pride. "I can do that. But will Dean be okay with this?"

"He doesn't have a choice. I'm not letting him die. Especially when it's my fault he's there."

Rowena assured, "It would've happened anyway. Them spending more time together just sped up the process. It's not your fault, Samuel. And no, Jack, you needn't blame yourself either. It's their emotional conditions we should concern ourselves with. After I fix them, they'll be needing a lot of help."

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

The tempest within Dean from Sam's visit raged and gurgled like lava spewing from a building caldera the second he'd watched his brother exit the asylum. Dean was out of his mind with errupting emotions.

He could see himself tearing slices of skin from Jabba, as the soul set upon the cradle was unable to escape his wrath. Dean heard the bone chilling screams from him nearing the precipice of what he percieved as his threshold. He felt his own nerve endings firing off with the force of canons on Independence Day while ripping apart with all his might, the bulky sections of Jabba's fatty tissue and skin. 

Red was everywhere. Wet streams were a piping hot shower drenching his face and became increasingly difficult to see through. He was covered in blood and _loving _it. The high pumping through his own veins at sonic speed made him feel like a God. Elizabeth Bathory's conquests were a prelude of children's fairytales by comparison to this level of carnage. 

Clawing for more, he realized quickly there wasn't. Frantically searching around like a frothing wild animal, preparing to defend its prey, he felt the fire in his palms when the skin pulled from his bones. The intact vertebrae he'd been holding suddenly snapped in half, gruesomely separating the pads of his hands away like thick strips of bacon. 

Dean experienced the familiar pause of time. His Prince's worried face came into view a second before two gentle fingertips smushed across his slimy, red forehead and darkness fell upon him as an antiquated theater curtain.

When he awoke, it was dark outside and the tender affections of his angel called him from sleep, in his own time.The smooth pads of Cas's fingers deftly circled pressure into the freshly cleaned skin of his back. He welcomed his lovers cautious weight resting on his ass while soothing sensations rippled throughout his previously tense muscles. 

"I'm sorry," Cas muttered in a reverent voice Dean hadn't heard in quite a while.

Turning his head he asked, "What happened?"

"You became dangerously close to having a stroke this afternoon." Cas tilted forward, swaddling him on their bed, walking his fingers along a path down his neck and shoulders. 

Sharp images stabbed in Dean's mind while hammering echoes of painful emotions threatened to rile him.

"Relax. There are infinite amount souls who've damned themselves here and await your attention. But I won't lose you. Calm yourself first."

He'd been harsh with Sam. Whatever was coursing through him seemed to greatly intensify his negatively charged feelings and inclinations. Guilt settled atop the mountain of other things inside. But his brother had lost his mind if he thought for a second he'd leave Cas.

This was the first peace he'd experienced in a long time and he'd be damned if he was giving it up. Following his Prince's command, he relaxed until that itch was singing, tempting him from the torture time out. When they returned to the throne room, he couldn't help but melt with appreciation for both the break and what awaited him a few yards away.

Dean loved how his angel's hot tongue tempted and caressed his own. He could stand there in that room for eternity, letting his Prince kiss him. With one palm full of a perfect celestial's ass and the other with a breathtaking blade, he reveled in the nearly silent moment.

Cas had gifted him a whimpering bitch strung by her left arm and leg. Muscles underneath her as-of-yet unmarred skin were bulging in her groin from severe tearing when she'd been roughly trussed up and prepped.

"Mm. Mm! What. Have. We. Here? Name, darlin'?"

The woman groaned uncomfortably, coughing and gagging behind the duct tape tightly plastered against her mouth, keeping the day’s chosen filler inside.

Scratching the back of his neck with his blade, Dean announced, "I'm sorry, what's that? Can't hear anything over the sound of your bullshit. Maybe swallow first? It's rude to talk with your mouth full."

The woman aggressively shook her head, indicating she'd rather not swallow the dog shit crammed inside her mouth. Dean pinched a corner of the tape and ripped it off, pleased at the first layer of skin going with it.

"Extra adhesive. Nice. You look like an episode of 'Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.'"

She vomited the contents of her mouth and as it hit the floor, splattering on Dean's legs, he jumped back. "Aw gross! Ya mind? Jesus.. ew."

Cas snapped his fingers and the mess was gone, as well as the shit vomit on the floor.

The woman croaked out a soggy sounding, "Janice."

Chuckling with a tone chock full of irony, Dean elucidated on why he found her name amusing.

"Maybe it's just me, but I have never met a 'Janice' I liked. Or even seen one on TV. 'Janice' is that over confident cunt of an office supervisor rationing the printer paper supply and guarding the break room donuts with her life. You know the one I'm talking about... always has her leads policing the water cooler crowd as if someone even fucking asked her to, but somehow still has the audacity to wear that shit eating grin that screams 'I can never do wrong because I'm Tinkerbell and have a degree in project management.’ Anyhoo, what're ya in for?" Dean queried with irritation.

As she continued spitting more shit onto the floor, Cas leaned over, whispering the answer in his ear. The expression spreading across his face had her trembling, pissing herself, and casting her eyes upon the floor.

Dean had heard and seen things he'd never be able to speak on both in this life and the next. But the unchecked hatred blasting from him tinted everything in his range of vision black. Oscillating with rage, he brought his face millimeters from hers, growling with an inhuman fury.

" 'Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.' " There is no forgiveness for what you've done. There is no redemption. And there will be no escape from what I am going to do to you."

Dean raked the spine of the blade around the edges of her face, drawing a beautiful red circle. When doing so, he felt the cool tips of his celestial lover's fingers skate down his back in encouragement.

"Oh Mamma Mia, today's your lucky day. See, your Master Carver happens to be a feminist. I'm all about equal rights, which means what's between your legs ain't earning you a shred of leniency. Pun definitely intended."

The woman stammered,"B-bbbut I was diagnosed with Muchouse By..by…"

"By proxy. It's called Munchausen By Proxy sweetheart."

Cas interjected with disbelief, "You can't even pronounce the name of an excuse you dare throw at us for what you've done?"

"Bitch, YOU THOUGHT…"

She shivered in response to the tip of Dean's knife opening the soft flesh under her chin, which gave way to the thin tissue within the mandible. A small cut compared with what was coming, but Dean was nothing if not considerate when subtly announcing the games had begun.

"Cas, cue some tunes for us, if you'd be so kind."

With a flick of his wrist, Cas switched on the radio. ZZ Top's "She's Got Legs" came on, and Dean nodded his head to the beat as he flipped his blade and rocked out. Gripping its pommel he sang, "She's got leg! She knows how to use it!"

Cas's grin was glorious as he stood back, witnessing Dean cutting through the powerful, thick gracilis in her left leg starting from the back. High pitched tones escaped her throat. It was making Dean's blood boil.

"You don't get to complain after what you did. Jeffrey!"

Jeffrey's head curled further inward against his chest as he scrunched into the fetal position.

"Get up _now_," Cas demanded in a non sympathetic tone.

Jeffrey struggled to stand, but looked to Cas for his command.

"Another Reaper, if you don't mind."

Jeffrey nodded erratically and bippity booped his ass right the fuck outta there.

"Sounder. The special one," Dean sung in a gleeful mood.

Cas found the unique device and passed it over with a glimmer in his eyes while explaining, "The toy isn't for everyone. Some women like it..I guess. But this one you won't find anywhere else."

Dean felt something akin to lightning coursing through his veins. Bottled, controlled lightning. He likened it to when he'd down a liter of Jolt as a kid. Traipsing over to his beloved, his lips tenderly swept from Cas's shoulder to his neck. The goosebumps Dean under his touched were deliciously satisfying. Reluctantly tearing himself away, he threw some gloves on and found her tiny opening. Then he began the careful insertion of the small, riveted metal device.

Janice stiffened at the intrusion, her good leg was violently shaking from blood loss and shock. Dean watched Jeffrey poof back into the asylum, placing the pepper in Cas's hands then slinking back into the corner in hopes of escaping all further notice.

"Open wide, beautiful."

Dean noticed Janice trying to be brave. Brave didn't work in the asylum. Cas grabbed her mouth and squeezed with a little too much pressure. Her jaw cracked and separated in three places. Cas jammed that pepper in, holding her cracked mandible together until...

"Jeffrey! Tape!"

Scurrying over and swiping the tape off the torture cart, he pulled out a few feet of the adhesive tool and wrapped it around Janice's head a few times, keeping her jaw in place. Immediately she kicked with the good leg while the other dangled, bloody and torn.

Leaning in close to her Dean courteously asked, "Ready to see what this neato thing can do, Janice?"

He pinched the device’s handle between his thumb and pointer finger, and slid a button forward. Janice jerked and kicked.

"Feel that, don't ya? The spikes at the end are barbed. And now it's time to come out." He chose a moderate pace to pull the sounder out. Her hips were twitching, twisting, and scrunching in pain. What came out with the device could be best described as ribbons of bloody tissue confetti.

He was shaking it off, readying to reinsert when a familiar voice behind him hit like a low running volt of electricity.

"Dean? Is this is a bad time to ask for the talk?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."-William Makepeace Thackery


	8. Chapter 8

The difference in the balmy Lebanon climate and the chilly asylum were stark, as Jack's teleportation down the street revealed. Hesitant to explain what the new cover charge was for the not-so-swanky joint, Sam realized enough surprises awaited them, it was best to pony up.

"You're gonna have to strip."

"I beg your pardon?" Rowena blurted out with a blank face. 

"Cas insists. Says it makes demons more compliant."

"I can't find fault in that logic. I'm impressed."

"I can take care of myself." Jack seemed deadly confident. 

Sam decided to let it go until it became a problem. A few no names greeted them with quiet, sullen faces. He'd barely unbuckled his belt before Rowena had lifted her loose summer dress up and over, as well as her lingerie.

Addressing one of the demons, she threatened, "There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. You ruin my expensive unmentionables and I'll break every one of them. Are we clear, sweetie?"

He nodded and shrunk back into the darkness of the entryway. 

Sam cautiously watched as the second black eyed dirt bag approached Jack, who'd disrobed down to his Star Wars boxer briefs.

"Touch me and I'll pull your kidney out through your urethra. I don't give a damn if I'm naked, but my fathers disapprove. Especially my celestial DoucheDad down the hall, when he's not cursed."

Jack's words were delivered in such a way that left the demon in no doubt the threat was real. He stepped away silently, hands raised in gesture conveying he'd rather not test. 

Sam had prepared himself, but had been so focused on getting Dean back he hadn't considered shielding Jack from what he might witness. His stomach lurched at the mess in front of him. Looking to Jack, the kid’s face held more gruesome curiosity than anything. 

"Dean? Is this is a bad time to ask for _ the talk? _"

_ The fuck _ was Jack up to?

Sam watched how the sound of Jack's voice affected Dean. How he'd flinched right away. Cas turned around in one fluid movement, with fire in his eyes. 

"Hey kid. Whaddya doing here? Smooth move, Sam," Dean griped.

"We could say the same about you." Rowena stepped forward. "And _ you _...Tweetie Pie.” She smiled at Cas. “Love what you've done with the place."

"I almost forgot your aspirations to run this establishment."

"I'm happy to sit as regent, should the position suddenly become available. Not to insinuate any near future incidents might render you unfit to rule, of course."

"Of course." Cas stood, locked in a stare down with the most stubborn redhead in all of existence. "You don't scare me, Rowena."

Wearing a smirk, she confidently replied, "I'd say 'We'll have to work on that, won't we?' but I'm more interested in your trust these days than your fear. So for now, I'll say..._ You should show me some respect." _

Cas feigned shivers with a grin, the room's tension escalating by the second. 

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

Dean shook off the taser-like sensations firing off throughout his body. Memories were zipping around, stabbing in his brain and gut. The sound of Jack's voice brought dull aches. Chills. Longing. He didn't like that. 

"Remind me again, kiddo. Which talk?"

"The SEX talk."

"Right. Yep. It's gonna have to wait. I'm in the middle of uh…" he jabbed his knife in the woman's gut, partially eviscerating her. "Janice. I'm in the middle of Janice."

Sam noted Jack carefully maintaining his facade, depicting a bothered response, as opposed to betraying how squicked out he really may've felt.

"That looks... uncomfortable." Jack swallowed down a poorly concealed stomach ripple.

"Yeah?" Dean raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Can you just finish her already so we can speak?"

"Ya know, I don't get it, Jack. Why's a sex talk so important you bippity booped yer asses all the way out here?"

Giving Dean the biggest Sammy dog eyes he could muster, Jack answered in great sorrow, "because it's the only way you'll talk to me."

"Talk to you about sex? Why? I mean Sam here can do as good a job- actually, what am I saying? He's the King of Abstinence. Nevermind."

"Because you promised you would. You keep your promises. Or at least you used to."

Sam heard the blaring radio in the background change to Muse's _ "Uprising," _and the irony was not lost on him. 

While Jack preoccupied Dean, Sam tried getting through to Cas again. "Save him!" 

_ "Rise up and take the power back. It's time that--" _

"I gave him purpose after Chuck revealed his senseless orchestrations had none. Every time he peels off someone's face whose perverted gaze violated children, every removal of limb and organ which was employed in assault upon the innocent, gives him back a shred of peace. Their torment is just, and not even you can deny that truth Sam."

"Fine. If you won't save the man you love from himself then we will! Jack! Leave that demon in the corner alone, but kill the rest." 

Cas lazily sat back on his throne with such carelessness it surprised even Dean. 

_ "The fat cats had a heart attack, you know that. _ _ Their time is coming to an end" _

Jack wistfully smiled at him, with maybe a few tears escaping and snapping of his fingers. Hard to tell over the racket of screams coming from the four corners of the Throne room and hall. It was all reminiscent of raging winds and scattered patterns of granulated pebbles in a sandstorm, exfoliating everything in its path.

Sam recognized Dean's careful movements. "Hands where I can see'em!"

Dean ripped his blade from the bowels of Janice and stealthily enveloped Jack in his arms, with the pointy tip of his bloodied knife at the kid’s pliant jugular.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

"C'mon Sam, we both know you've got enough sedatives in one pocket and phenobarbital in the other to take down a whole fucking pack of hellhounds. I'm alive. I'm breathing. Take these two and walk the fuck away."

_ "We have to unify and watch our flag ascend" _

He could see Cas beginning to writhe. Rowena had grown pissed enough at his indifference that she'd begun cursing him with what appeared to be lashes from a whip. Blood sprayed from every slice and gash crossing his body.

_ "They will not force us" _

Dean’s anger broiled. "Cas, get up! What the fuck’s wrong with you, bitch? Stop it! Sam I'll cut him, I'll cut Jack I swear!"

"No Dean. You won't."

Jack was out of his hold faster than he could blink. Dean felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach before flying back against the wall. Not fun when your naked ass scrapes down a brick wall, then lands on a pile of broken bricks bent on embedding themselves in your ass and crunching your nuts. 

_ "They will stop degrading us" _

"Sonuvabitch! Cas! Ow! Fuck! Cas get up! Now!"

Rowena and Jack were pinning Cas, who despite being ripped open this way and that, was putting up one hell of a fight. The second Dean was up he realized he'd lost track of Sam.

By the time he figured out where he was, he made one good swipe with his blade, taking a fair chunk out of his brother's forearm before both his hands were hog tied behind his back. He kicked and struggled. He even threw his head back and felt Sam's nose break under the force of the crown of his head. And yet, his brother's grip was iron. 

_ "They will not control us" _

He practically levitated in rage hearing Sam yell, "Rowena, I have him! Pull it now!"

She was running towards Dean with a vial in her hand. He kicked and swung himself to the ground. Sam grappled him into a headlock. He thrashed, frantic to get loose and free Cas from whatever the hell these assholes called family were gonna do to him. 

"Dean, don't let them touch you. Get up!" Cas yelled back. His eyes were a flaming yellow brick road, promising vengeance for anyone who dared harm his beloved. 

_ "We will be victorious" _

Dean felt himself forcefully stretched backwards, his chest vulnerable and bare to this red haired witch bitch who he'd kill the first chance he got. She flattened her biting cold hand against his skin like a star over his heart. 

Singing an incantation, she firmly dug her hands against his chest_ . "Particulatim prodeunt animae tuae!" _

"I'm sorry, Dean. This'll hurt. Bad. But it's the only way to save you. Both of you!" Sam growled as he further restrained him, throwing on additional weight.

His skin singed and stretched as Rowena's fingers sunk further into the muscles and tissues. She twisted her hand as if turning a large dial, and a bright white light blinded him. 

"Dean! Get away from him you self righteous assholes! Dean!" Cas screamed with an unholy plurality emanating from his grace. 

Jack's strength held in restraining him. "Castiel, don't move! You aren't yourself!"

All this while Claws McLeod was pulling out his heart, at least that's what he assumed was going down. Since he was damn sure his core was in meltdown. 

"I've got it, Sam! Hold him still!" She hollered, funneling a glowing substance through her hand into the vial. "I'm so sorry for this, Dean. Please forgive me. It's for the best." She hopped up and ran to Jack, who was still holding strong against Cas. "Open up, Castiel. You must purify your grace. Now!"

"You're violating his soul! I'll never consume it. Never!"

Rowena implored, "Castiel, you must!" 

Dean kicked, breaking his right heel against the concrete floor. He screamed and cried. "Don't! Don't you dare take it, Cas. They ripped it from me! We don't know what it'll do to you! It might kill you! I've lost you far too many times. I'm not losing you again! Don't swallow it!"

"I'm sorry Castiel. _ Gregori Modus!" _

Witnessing Cas's eyes grow wide in shock, Dean felt his heart breaking as the angel mouthed 'NO!' And his jaw opened wide against his will. He turned his head sharply to his right in an attempt to break his own neck. As if doing so would prevent the inevitable. 

"No! No! Nooooo! Cas!" Dean strained against Sam, his muscles tore as he pulled and pulled to break loose.

Rowena opened the vial. The contents swirled and coiled, then rose from its containment and disappeared into Cas's mouth. Its increasing glow meant Dean could track from the angel’s mouth, down his throat, and suddenly Cas’ eyes shone like the sun. 

Dean panicked, noting Cas’s frozen stance and the blue celestial light from long ago returning for a moment. He heard Rowena sigh in relief, but her choked horror instantly broke through the relief as his eyes lit up in a fiery orange. His laugh was beyond maniacal, and Dean almost thought his angel would get free from Jack's power hold, but the nephil kid had obviously been eating his Wheaties. 

"Sam, hold Dean, I need more!"

"How much more?" he demanded. 

Dean felt himself slammed on the floor even harder. Not again. Not fucking again. The first time was hell. Christ, the irony. Just "No! No! No!" 

But Rowena had already muttered the incantation again and dove right back into the sweet spot. He grunted and bit his lip to brace himself. 

Cas snarled. "I'll end you for this! You are killing him. You thought I was? I was sustaining him!"

Jack was beginning to show signs of fatigue, but was nowhere near weakened to the point of slipping. 

Black spots with gold flecks fired in his vision and nausea took hold. Vomiting down Sam's arm, Dean became aware that as Cas's strength grew against Jack, that delicious sensation of adrenaline and something not quite human began coursing through him once more. 

Sam flinched just enough to give Dean the out he needed. He curled his body back against Sam's, then flipped and slammed him in a dusty heap on the floor. Rowena was pushed backwards but maintained her balance. He scrambled for his blade, found the grip, and heard his brother's movements behind him. 

Dean whirled around with nearly inhuman speed, throwing his knife, which embedded in the right upper side of Sam's chest, knocking him over. Just as Dean caught his breath he noticed a sting, like an insect bite itching and burning. Swatting at his neck, a syringe popped out and was falling in slow motion like an overly dramatic movie scene. The room had become a vomit comet spinning machine. Everything was instantly leaning sideways. He couldn't get up. He weighed five hundred pounds. 

Sam pressed him down. He sounded funny, his voice was too deep and far away.

Dean continued to flail. "Tickle somebody else's intestines ya crazy bitch! Aargh! Rowena, get the fuck off me!"

Rowena had grabbed a more substantial chunk of his soul, rather haphazardly, and held it in her hand as she marched over, forcing it down Cas's throat like it was a handful of kryptonite to Superman. 

Once again, Dean went into a blind panic, terrified it would kill Cas, or even something worse. He looked on, helpless to save him, and his whooziness was reaching an all-time high. He saw his angel's eyes flare again in celestial blue. The shade held longer this time but before it died out again, Dean felt the spell fail. He didn't know how he felt it, but it was akin to a fizzling sparkler dud on the Fourth of July. 

The walls shook with Cas's laughter and he reverted back to his darker state. "You think you can turn me...this can't be undone."

Sam bellowed, "Rowena! Why isn't the spell working?! What're we supposed to do now?"

She looked back in sorrow at Sam. Dean’s stomach lurched again and a headache went off like full force dynamite inside his brain pan. He was failing Sam. He didn't want to fail him. He did not want to feel _ this. _What the fuck had been happening? Pain and immeasurable guilt covered him like the weight of freshly poured cement. 

"I'm sorry. But I cannot fix him with only part of Dean's soul. We were looking at it wrong. It's working like an infection. When you don't take the full dose of your antibiotics, it comes back more and more resistant, virulent. It's all or nothing, I'm afraid."

"He's getting stronger, Sam! I can't hold him much longer! Help me!" yelled Jack. 

Dean was in no shape to even sit, despite fighting the sedatives threatening to drag him under. Sam left him and rushed to place Enochian handcuffs, which had been under a concealment spell, around Cas's wrists. Dean was getting sick again all over the floor as the sound of his lovers’ tormented screams blasted through the room, busting windows and any other glass items lying around. The smell of singed flesh burnt his nose. Looking up, he saw the Enochian cuffs clapped on his angel, burning into his wrists. 

"Sam! The window of time is closing. You'll have to make the decision for Dean and Cas. But it's this or death. And there's no going back. Once his soul is gone, it's gone," she gravely warned. 

"I'm not losing them again," Sam almost cried.

"Can they live with it?" she wondered.

"So long as they're alive, then there's a way to deal. Do it. Now."

She nodded, but Dean could see how conflicted she was. 

"You do this and I'll never forgive you. Cas will never forgive you. You won't know the meaning of witch hunt until we track your ass and do things you can't conjure in your worst nightmares. And there won't be a soul to give me even the slightest hint of remorse," Dean spat at her, but it dribbled down the side of his mouth rather than the projectile exit he'd intended. Damn drugs. 

Everything was beginning to narrow in front of him. His heart was racing, his muscles wouldn't work. If he could've kicked her in the face when she neared him he would've, but it was a fight he was losing, and it scared him more than anything he'd ever experienced. 

It didn't matter how regretful she appeared, the tears streaming down her face were irrelevant. He knew what she was doing would change him forever. For good or bad he'd never be the same, and it meant something once precious, once strong and good, would be erased as if it never existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Particulatim prodeunt animae tuae!"(Piece by piece may your soul come forth).
> 
> Gregori Modus!"(Gregori Mode)


	9. Chapter 9

His pitiful defensive motions probably looked more like a Grand Mal seizure than anything else. Cas's shouts for him thundered and cracked the foundations of the asylum. Every pound of his angel's wrists against the wall he was held against was a defibrillator shock to his heart. Dean couldn't discern if it was bringing him back to life or killing him.

A high pitched ring in his ears was splitting his skull. Everything that he ever was syphoned from his body and gripped his entire being like fingernails catching, breaking, and ripping from the nail beds on a frozen rocky cliff off Mount Everest to the infinite abyss below.

Cas's eyes were on him, conveying to Dean a silent scream from his own physical and emotional prison of hell. He wanted Dean. He loved Dean. He would always love Dean. Just like he loved Cas. The angel's wrists garishly snapped, in one last effort to pull loose from the cuffs and get to Dean. His angel was trying as hard as he could to always come when he called.

Cas's vessel lit like a roman candle as Rowena pushed Dean’s soul down his throat. Every artery and vein illuminated in green and blue pulses that had been intertwined, like the beating of two hearts clawing to remain one while the cruelty of fate was tearing them apart. Cas was blasting red, yellow, orange, and black auras in all directions, as if a parasite was finally leaving him.

Dean was screaming while watching Cas fall lifeless against the wall, hanging grotesquely from his angelic shackles which had ceased billowing.

A dry wave of calm spread through him, like the softest of butterfly wings. He was less perturbed by all that had just transpired. Irritated at Sam and Rowena sure. Instinct pinged at him to check on Cas. Dean surmised it was the drugs which lent to this prevailing indifference to the situation in general. Right now he really wanted a fucking nap.

"Did it work?" he heard Sam and Jack ask in tandem.

Rowena's keen eyes roamed over Dean's motionless self. He knew he should get up. Do...something. She assessed him as a non threat and hurried over to Cas, who stirred infinitesimally as she approached.

The floor was as a slab of ice, yet it bothered him not. He was a one man audience to her administration of care and concern over the angel. Why, he wondered, when he could heal himself?

"De-...Dean? What've we.. where's Dean?" Cas stammered, groggy, but becoming more aware by the second.

His head straightened. His wrists crackled with a healing spell by Rowena. Drawing himself up to stand he frantically searched. Dean watched his eyes follow Rowena's hand which gestured in his direction.

Faintly glowing blue orbs fell upon him. Cas had made it through their assault intact. Good. Having an angel bat for your team would always be an advantage. Especially if he decided to go up against Chuck at some point.

He noticed Cas regarding him with an odd expression. Fear. That's what Dean registered it as. But why? All he was doing was just sitting there on his ass, medicated to the moon. It was starting to piss him off why Cas would think him a threat.

"What the fuck are you looking at? You think I'm gonna go AWOL or something?"

Pain slashed across the angel's face. Then gut wrenching anguish.

"Seriously, what the fuck are all you staring at? You guys attacked me! Took something from me! What more do you want huh? It's not like I have much more than twenty pounds of flesh, so good luck with that." Dean hadn't realized he was crouching slightly in a defensive stance.

Cas croaked an answer through a breaking voice. "Your eyes, Dean. They're gray. Not just your irises."

Irritation flared inside him. "Well gee, Cas, I think yer kinda pretty too. Should we hold hands and kiss now?"

He watched the angel flinch, as a child struck with a ruler by an overly harsh school master. There was the overwhelming anguish again on Cas's face.

"Something's not right with him. Rowena, what have you done?" Cas implored, although it was clear he knew damn well what she'd done. He was waiting in terror for confirmation.

"Yeah, Rowena, tell'em what ya did," Dean sardonically grinned. He noted Jack giving him a seriously uncomfortable stare.

Shocked, Rowena cautiously prodded "I-I..can you not remember? We did what was necessary. To save you both."

She crumpled with reproach towards Cas. Not him. The one she sacrilegiously stole from. But the angel. Dean felt an empty anger roll through him, the presence of the emotion was there within, and yet it was shallow in texture. A ghost of the emotion itself.

"We had to purify… well, you'd become-"

"She made you eat my soul. Every. Last. Drop."

Dean was intrigued by his own reactions. Watching Rowena squirming inside, as she raked herself over the coals at Cas's fallen face while he was hunching in disgust.

"Spare me the feigned 'woe is me' bullshit, angel. _You_ made the deal with the Empty showing total disregard for what you meant to us, _Jack_ burned his soul against everyone's wishes, and for what? I found a way in to that black mirror to raise your feathered ass from celestial perdition. _Sam_ put me out here on Prince detail when I wanted quality time over quantity. _You_ put that blade in my hand. _She_ ripped my soul out, shoving it down your throat for a cure. Now _you're_ disgusted with me? That's some irony."

Sure as shit he saw their disdain. Their squeamish discomfort in his presence. His family couldn't stand the sight of him.

"I could kill each of you for what you've done. But that would require giving a damn."

It didn't compute with them. Cas looked like a jacked up figurine of some broken hearted angel, chipped almost beyond recognition.

"Dean. I'm..I-I so-"

"Save it." Dean moved to leave but shook his head, unable to take one step forward. "Jack, I swear on your Grandpappy-"

"You'll do what, exactly?" Jack's reply was as swift and sharp as a whip. "I'm not letting you mic drop and leave. You're every bit my dad as Sam and Castiel. Rowena fix him. Now."

Dean whipped his head towards Rowena. "Oh I think you've done enough, don't you?"

"Jack I-," she stuttered, raising her hands in supplication, "I'm not sure, I don't think there's anything to be done except watch over him."

Dean laughed. It sounded hollow and cruel. "Look what happened to the last angel who perched on my shoulder. Picture of celestial health."

He heard the sound of metal clanging on the floor and turned to see Sam, bleeding from his chest. Looked like he'd missed something vital. Whatever. It did the damage he'd needed it to.

"What's wrong with him, Rowena?" Sam begged.

"His body is resisting the cure," Cas raggedly breathed out. “The Mark of Cain and his time as a demon must have altered his DNA. In the absence of his-s..soul, this is all that’s left."

Dean could've shown worry over an angel who was puking his guts up at the sight of him, no less. But there was nothing left to conjure. No love, no empathy, not even concern. He'd become the inversion of such traits. Only the awareness he'd once cared about his dignity compelled him to at least try putting one foot in front of the other.

"There's something," Cas contributed in a voice full of heartache, "there's something we can put in him."

Rowena shot him an inquisitive look. Jack and Sam were all ears.

"Go on then," Rowena encouraged.

"Me."

"You?"

Cas was trembling uncontrollably. A few tears escaped while trying to explain. "If he stays like this, we know from Sam, Jack, and Donatello he'll be a constant danger to others. He wouldn't want that. Not the r-real Dean. If you put my grace in him-"

"You know I can hear you, right?" Dean barked.

Cas continued, "It'll serve as a moral compass at least."

"I'm gonna write a book when I get outta here,” Dean mused. “I'll call it 'How Many Ways You Can be Violated in a Single Lifetime.' Think it'll hit the New York Times Best Sellers’ List?"

Sam’s voice dripped with sorrow and disbelief. "You'll be human then. Cas-"

"It doesn't matter anymore. I can section myself off so there'll be as little breach of privacy as possible. But it will keep him from hurting himself or others."

"I'll find a way to bring his soul back, Cas. I promise," Sam vowed.

"If you couldn't with Donatello, you can't for him. Once a celestial consumes a soul, I assure you, it's gone forever. It doesn't exist anymore. I'm more sorry than you can ever know."

"This isn't your fault, Cas. This wasn't you," Sam tried to soothe.

"I'm no better than a Gregori. What I've done these past few months. What I've had h-him do…" he turned away from Dean, unable to even look him in the eye. "It is my fault. Nothing can convince me otherwise. But I can spend what time I have left making sure my mistake doesn't harm anyone else. That he doesn't hurt anyone else."

"Your mistake? And what was that exactly? Us?" That at least echoed rather strongly with Dean. Finally something did. But it was only more suffering.

"We were never a mistake, Dean. Only my own selfish choices were, but I'll fix them. To the extent I can."

"I don't want this!"

Cas sniffled. "I know. But the part of you that was human is now gone. Because of me. So I'll spend as long as I can making sure the rest of you that's left will honor the soul you once had."

"And when you can't?"

"We have that long to figure out another way to hold my grace. In the meantime, my soul from Metatron will sustain me."

"So I'm your fucking Ma'lak box. Thanks, I'll pass."

Jack and Sam both piped up with, "He wasn't asking."

Dean recognized Rowena pausing to close her eyes, this time silently asking for forgiveness. He'd give her none. He took a still woozy swipe at Jack, trying to disorient him enough to get away. His left hook was mean, but Jack's sharp anticipation was better, allowing him to swing and fall right into his arms where he had no chance of making his great escape.

"Castiel," she offered him the empty vial.

Dean implored, "Don't do this, Cas!"

But the angel opened wide, and he watched as the silvery blue substance that made him the creature for whom Dean had held an endless burning torch for over a decade, exited Jimmy like woven yarn and twisted into the tiny glass. Cas's body slouched as the last of his grace settled and was capped by Rowena.

Dean was exhausted. Still, he fought tooth and nail, pushing against the sedative and invisible field Jack used to subdue him.

"God dammit No! Don't put'em in me! You're violating us both!"

Rowena stepped forward and spoke an incantation which hurt so badly, he swore his jaw was breaking when she pried it open. He shook his head, with a pounding heart; this was such blasphemous violation.

Cas's grace poured forth. As with Michael, a light glowed around him brightly. Tendrils of icy air feathered against every hair follicle on his body, every part of his eyes, skin, hair, mouth was given the softest touches. This was different than the harshness of last time.

Familiarity at the niggling of something, no someone, melding into himself, had him bracing for panic, but none came. Nobody was shoving him aside. No one was pushing him down. Cas fit perf- Dean jolted. He seized. Something was wrong. Really fucking wrong.

Cas's consciousness gripped the walls of his inner self and then there was a Punch! Slam! He was Baby, rolling and somersaulting after impact trying to contain Cas, who was the passenger for whom the laws of physics were bent on ejecting from the vehicle.

"No no no no noooo!" He heard Rowena screaming.

"What? Is he dying?" Sam yelled.

"It's his bloody DNA. Cas, your grace, it's not compatible. His body's expelling you! Sam, I thought you said there was a bond? A claim?"

"There was..I thought…Cas? Why wouldn't you be compatible?"

Like a four millimeter tall version of himself peering beyond these ocular lenses called eyes, he spotted Rowena desperately casting to keep the grace from pouring out of him. Cas's head hung low, his shoulders slumped forward, and his body swayed in crushing grief.

He gulped and lifted his head. "We used to be."

Dean jerked, twisted, and more grace coughed out of him. Was he bleeding to death? His body was hemorrhaging grace, yet part of him was clinging to it as if it were his lifeblood of existence. Cas's hand held his cheek. The angel's tear soaked face screamed in anguish and endless despair.

"I'm sorry. So sorry I've failed you, Dean. Everything I've ever done since the moment my grace touched your soul in Hell was to save you from more pain. And I've failed you for the last time. I love you! Remember I will always love you."

Cas drew in a massive gulp of air. Steeling himself, his face went blank and he turned, staring into space as if in a daze. His fingers, without even looking, aligned with a once visible scar which had been seared into his skin. Dean examined the lifeless expression on Cas's face.

And then it began. The scorching inside him was as barbed quills tearing out something deeply ingrained and precious. Or was it cold? Yes, it was ice. This was not grace touching soul. This was a claim, divinely engineered to be unbreakable, shattering and taking a celestial's heart along with it.

The steady flow of an ice mist kept pushing from within his physical shell. It blasted outward from his shoulder, covering Cas's hand in frost. He beheld the light of Castiel's eyes go from an illuminating soft blue to dark as quickly as a switch being thrown.

The angel sat there, catatonic, as Dean writhed and kicked with the ferocity of a caged animal. Like a tide pulling back from shore, grace continued sweeping back, scraping the barren landscape. The more its ebb further withdrew from shore, the worse Dean knew the flow would be when crashing back in.

Rowena hurriedly turned to Cas. "Spevak's Mechanism will hold for now. It's the only way to encase it!"

His lover’s cold voice was as hollow metal. Death. The most frightening, melancholic sound in all the universe.

"Do it."

"Hecate save me. Formam in tempore gratiae signa!" She sobbed, placing a hand on Cas's chest and another on Dean's.

Light and fire exploded from him. Yet he could still hear.

"God dammit, Rowena, this had better work!” Sam screamed. “I'm NOT losing my brother! Do you hear me?!"

Dean didn't know how the angel was managing, aside from appearing a living corpse. He wondered why Jack's hand was directly in the center of Rowena's back. An intense yellow stare from the nephil behind the family witch told him the spell was magnifying, an overkill for maximum success. There was no going back. Not from this. Not ever.

"This spell will hold. Until we find a way to transfer the mechanism to someone else when Castiel inevitably-" Rowena seemed unable to finish her sentence.

The excruciating ice burns through every molecule of his body were beginning to lessen, as were his howls and screams. The second he realized he could breathe again and his body trusted it wasn't dying, he sure as fuck wished it had.

Dean could feel him. Castiel was retreating into himself, within a shadowy, inconspicuous corner of his mind. Rendering himself dormant, he would awaken only when the threat of expulsion arose. This was goodbye. For now. Maybe forever.

As one door was closing, another one opened. One of feeling and memory. Both dripping with torment, shame, and loss. These were not Dean's memories. These were not his feelings. But he knew better than anyone his own would've mirrored them. His notorious tendency to shoulder guilt as Atlas would have had him experiencing these horrors one hundred fold. If he didn't have the filter of angel grace eternally imprisoned within him.

"Dean. Cas. Let's go home," Sam suggested as he pulled on his brother.

Dean couldn't move. He couldn't speak. Paralyzed by the shock of this egregious, albeit necessary violation, and the crushing weight of unfathomable loss which followed was too much to process.

"Jack, take Dean and Rowena first. Come back for me and Cas."

The nephilim’s head nodded in understanding, though Dean saw the shimmers of devastation already welling in the kid’s eyes. Just before feeling himself pulled back through space and time to the bunker, the last things he heard were, "Dean was my home," and sobs echoing into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Formam in tempore gratiae signa! (Seal grace within form for all time).


	10. Chapter 10

Cas awoke to soft knocking. Uncertain how long he'd been asleep, his burning, watery eyes struggled to focus on the clock on his nightstand. It was 7:42 in the evening, but which evening? Soon after returning to the bunker, he'd fallen ill. All sense of time was lost in between fever fueled R.E.M. cycles. Yet ailments aside, he didn't want to talk.

Nonetheless, as the door quietly opened he recognized the distinct sound of Sam, cautiously clearing his throat.

"Cas?"

He wanted to retreat into the nothingness of sleep, or at least pretend to, but what if something was wrong with Dean? He'd be in dereliction of duty if he feigned unconsciousness to avoid addressing the most debilitating situation he'd ever known. Pushing through the layers of emotional and physical discomfort, he rolled himself over and silently regarded the kind soul he'd grown to consider a brother.

He appreciated Sam's heartfelt concern of, "How are you feeling?" But knew he deserved none of it.

"Gone," was his lifeless reply.

Sam furrowed his brows. Cas closed his eyes, an indication he'd expand no further.

"Are Dean's vitals within range?" He couldn't bring himself to outright ask about his overall condition, because he knew. The close proximity with his grace allowed him to glean just a sliver of Dean's hellish suffering. What the man he loved was experiencing hurt more than every kind of misery Cas himself had known in his billions of years combined.

"Jack's checking on him now. I brought you some soup to feed the fever."

"I should eat, but don't want to."

Sam dropped his head, nodding briefly. "I get it. Catching the flu on top of everything, it's bad. This is really hard. I want him back, too. But how are you holding up?"

"Not sure I am."

"I'm so sorry, Cas. We tried to find something else. I'm not giving up-"

"Sam, you did everything you could to snap him out of it. You couldn't get through to me because I was the source, and Rowena was the best option. He's so hurt. For himself and for me. He's never wanted to be anything other than human. I'm the one who should apologize to you for doing this to your brother."

"Dean needs time. I know him. Once he gets used to this new norm... we'll get you guys through this. You belong together."

"We did once. I would give anything to go back and change things."

Cas coughed and sneezed, then buried himself under the blankets as a chill wracked through his very human body. "Now just the sight of him will remind me of the things I encouraged him to do, the reason he required such a terrible cure in the first place. Carrying it for the rest of this body's time here, it hurts to breathe just thinking about it."

"You were human before. It was a crap experience, but let us show you the good side. Let us help you."

"How? I'd have killed myself already, but I can't even have that release because my grace will return to the Empty. Dean suffered so much there to get me out, and because of the spell, all of him could return. So the risk of me ending myself is leaving him soulless, or sending him back to the Shadow. I won't do that, no matter how grievous my suffering will be for the next few decades."

"I don't want you to kill yourself! You have any idea the hell Dean went through the last two times you went to the Empty? How I felt? This is a really messed up situation but Jack and I won't rest until there's a solution."

"If the spell reverses, my grace returns to me. While there's life in this body, Dean will be safe. I'll be the only one besides Rowena strong enough to put it back in place. She can teach me Spevak's Mechanism. It's complex, but doable. Then I'll teach it to Jack so when I'm gone he'll know what to do, should it ever reverse."

Cas pondered a moment, then his face twisted in sorrow. "But then, it's eternally chaining Jack's existence to his. Dean will be miserable having a micromanager forever, and Jack should be free to do what he wants with his. I've ruined others lives. I want to die! It won't be by my hand, but I've never wanted to end myself so badly."

Cas sobbed into his pillow, hemorrhaging emotion, torment and shame. Sam remained silent as the grave, a pillar of support and companionship while he cried it out.

After a while, Sam spoke, although Cas knew its intent was to distract.

"How complex?"

"Over sixty sigils taken from the cage combined with my grace were tattooed and seared into every molecule, every strand of Dean's DNA. But it will serve as his moral compass. That I can promise."

"Jesus, Cas. Please forgive us." Sam was on the verge of tears, as he stood to leave, giving him space to eat and process.

Cas tried responding, "I do." Yet if he spoke in that moment he'd completely lose it all over again. Sam had enough on his plate with a sick ex-angel and a brother suffocating in severe psychological, emotional, and spiritual meltdown.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

Dean stared at the ceiling from his bed, as he had the past four days, without the blissful escape of sleep which he no longer required. Once Jack had brought him home he'd showered, then barricaded himself in his room.

He sensed Jack in the hall. The minor angelic abilities, leaking through him like a slow IV drip, were still so unsettling.

Sorry kid. I don't even wanna exist, let alone talk.

Jack entered without knocking. "Can I just, sit with you? You don't have to say anything."

Taking a few deep breaths, which hurt like hell, he calmed as much of his inner storm as possible. "Whatever."

He resumed his ceiling staring contest, but the presence of another in his personal space proved more than awkward. A maddening compulsion to crawl the walls threatened to overtake him, but the notion alone freaked him the fuck out because he knew he was now actually capable of it.

Trying to distract himself from his well intentioned babysitter, he let his senses extend beyond his four walls and down the hall. He immediately retracted when feeling sick.

Cas? Though Dean himself wasn't afflicted, he lunged for the garbage can by his desk and puked. It was then, during this surge of illness and grief he felt Jack monitoring him.

"Will ya quit doing that?!"

"What?" Jack's head innocently snapped to attention.

"Reading my mood! Learn the art of subtlety kid, feels like yer cramming an emotional rectal thermometer up my ass! Back the fuck off."

"Have you been a dog, too? It really wasn't as fun as I thought it would be."

Oh, Dean was not fucking going there. Not now. He realized his arms were wrapped around his body as if to self soothe. But he wasn't calm. Fabric was tearing from his body, the sounds of thread ripping slammed him back to the asylum, the special place. His heart painfully pounded with the onslaught of static memory shocks, reminding him of how he enjoyed tormenting the souls there.

"Dean! What's wrong? Please tell me!"

The weight of someone on the bed beside him should've sent Dean through the roof with panic over anyone approaching. However, finding small comfort from the firm hand of a youth peeling his tightly curled fingers away from the torn fabric of his shirt was unexpected. As was the relief when Jack didn't persist in touching him further.

The kid was silently crying. For him. "I don't know how to fix you, Dean."

The words triggered a spiraling meltdown.

"There's no fixing what I've done," he choked and gasped, trying to collect himself, but a yell so hard he thought his throat had been slit escaped, "I DON'T DESERVE TO BE SAVED!!! NOT ANYMORE!"

He felt Jack putting up a kind of sound barrier, allowing him to "vent" without external interruption. The gesture backfired and before Dean knew it, he was tossing shit on his desk at the wall, smashing his lamp against his bedroom door.

"I. CAN'T. BE. SAVED!" he wailed, violently tearing at his shirt and scratching at the red, angry skin beneath it. "There's no place for me anywhere! I've got a death sentence called immortality. I have to watch everyone I know, everyone I love, die!"

Sobbing, Jack issued, "I'm so sorry for what we did to you and Cas-"

"Fuck! I can't even blame you guys for this! You did what needed to be done. But I wanna kill you for blowing up my mom. Rowena and Sam for stealing my soul and forcing it down Cas! You know what this feels like for him? Do you?!"

Jack was so distraught he simply nodded for a few seconds, his shoulders shook as he shed more tears. "He wants to die! You both do! And it hurts so much."

"Damn right I want to die! I've got so much guilt and shame in me I should've combusted by now!"

"Both of you are hurting so much, I don't understand how it's not killing you!"

"I wish it would! But your celestial suicide watch is pointless because I CAN'T. I don't know how! And even if I did, it means killing the person I love most! The only one in this entire universe who believed I deserved to be saved, and risked his immortal life to do it! I won't end him. I can't send him back there. I still love him even without...without.."

"There's a disconnect between you now, isn't there? You love each other, but there's an absence of something. You think this is too big?"

Dean was trembling. Back on his bed, with his head in his hands, he couldn't stop crying if he wanted to. To name what was lost made it being gone too real. He was dying inside. This was his penance. A living death. And he wasn't even himself anymore. He felt like a ghost or an echo.

"Rowena took my soul, Jack. There are things you can't come back from. And when my body was rejecting Cas's grace, the only way to make it take it was to break the claim he'd made on me. Our beginning. Our bond."

Jack furrowed his brows, subconsciously craning his neck to better understand.

"I'm gonna spend everyday of forever wishing I could eat a bullet. And the punishment for what I did, is not being able to. That's my prison. He's seared and sealed within me forever. My body is his. And the part of him that isn't, is already on death row."

"Maybe if you just..talk to each other. You've got to mend things."

"I can't even look at him because all I see is what I've done to him. He's human and fragmented because of me. His soul will go to heaven, if they even allow it. But he'll never be whole and at peace again. And neither will I." Dean stopped crying. There was nothing left. There were no more tears to be shed over what had been done to him. To them both.

Jack appeared to take his silence as a temporary stalemate. Whatever. Dean wanted to be alone. The kid gave him one last pitiful look and closed the door behind him.

=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=•=

As Jack stepped into the hallway, putting space between himself and the current disaster that was one of his fathers, he met the weary soul of Sam, fresh from what looked like a truly disparaging conversation with Cas.

As Sam did his best to hide his own tears, he shook his head in defeat.

"He's not getting better is he?" Jack's voice dripped with concern.

"The flu will pass."

"That's not what I meant."

Hanging his head low, Sam took in a long stilted breath. "No, he's not. Dean? "

"He doesn't know how to kill himself, but he said even if he could find a way, he won't ever do it. He won't kill Cas. He blames us. And he doesn't. I've never seen him so upset, not even when Cas was dead."

He sighed in exhaustion but looked him in the eye when vowing, "I'm not giving up, Jack. Every jam, every dire straits we've been in- there's always been a loophole. I'm going to find it."

But deep down, the weight of a six ton anchor settled in Sam's gut with devastating finality. He knew he couldn't fix it. Not this time.


End file.
